We have done a survey for the whole school about tutorial schools and private tutors and a interview with teachers teaching in day school. The summary is down below.
Q1. What's your age? A- 6-12 (31)B- 13-18 (30) C- 19< (2) |  |
Twenty four percent of them neither joined the tutorial schools nor the private tutors. Four percent of those attended tutorial schools. Seventeen of the interviewees had private tutors to help with their work. Twelve of them joined either tutorial schools or private tutors.
Q2. Did you jion any tutorial school or private tutors? A- No, I didn't. (24)B- Yes, I joined a tutorial school. (5) C- Yes, I had a private tutor. (20) D- Yes, I joined both tutorial school and private tutor. (14) |
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When they are asked if they want to join tutorial schools or private tutors, most of them left it blank and some said “no”, nobody wants to join any tutorial schools or private tutors.
Q4. Do you want to join any tutorial school or private tutor? A- Yes (2)B- No (20) |  |
Tutorial school provide notes with essential information and tips regarding CE exams which improve their studies. Then, the interviewees who joined the tutorial schools were going to fill in their answers about the question: What they learnt in the tutorial schools, the answers they gave are down below: Most of them selected “Revise things that I learned in school” Some selected “Learn new things that I couldn't learn in school”.
Q6. What did you learn in the tutorial school? A- Revise things that I learned in school. (11)B- Learn new things that I couldn't learn in school. (8) |  |
Q7. Do you enjoy your atudies in your tutorial school? A- Yes. (14)B- No. (5) |  |
Next, they were questioned how long they have been studying in tutorial schools; the maximum is about two to six years.
Next, they were questioned how long they have been studying in tutorial schools, the maximum is about two to six years.
Then, we questioned them what do they think about the difference of tutorial schools and day schools. Answers below:This is the next part of questions for the interviewees who joined in learning from private tutors. The first question is about what they learnt from the private tutors. Most of them think that they can revise things after learning in school. Some of them selected that they can learn new things which they didn’t learn in school before.
| Q11. What did you learn from the private tutor? A- Revise things I learned in school. (15) B- Learn new things that I coulbn't learn in school. (19) |  |
Most of the interviewees enjoy studying with their private tutor while a little of them do not.
Q12. Do you enjoy your studies with your private tutor? A- Yes. (29)B- No. (5) |  |
The average of the time being studied with private tutors is 5.11 years that is a long time for a pupil in six to twelve years old.
We asked the interviewees what they thought of the difference between private tutors and school teachers, the main answers are:The last question of the survey is: Do you think that you need a tutorial school or a private tutor? Thirty-two of the interviewees thought they don’t need. Twenty-five of them thought they need.
Q16. Do you think that you need a tutorial school or a private tutor? A- Yes. (29)B- No. (34) |  |
There were fifty-seven people doing the survey.
We interviewed some primary and secondary day school teachers. Many of them kindly finished the interview.
One of the teachers thought that there is no necessity to have private tutor or go to tutorial schools. These are her thoughts on tutorial schools and private tutors.
“Because
if you pay attention in school, you can also gain the knowledge. They
just felt that if you don’t take tutorial courses, they would lose some
important hints. So they think taking courses can help them with their
studies. But I don’t think it can help that much. Also, students rely
on tutorial courses and they even don’t pay attention in class. They
only revise the syllabus that the tutors provide, that’s why many of
them failed in the school common tests. That’s the reason why I don’t
encourage students to take tutorial courses.”
Another secondary teacher also shared her feelings about tutorial schools and private tutors. She thought that students may go to tutorial schools or have private tutors when necessary.
“I don’t encourage students to go to those schools or take those courses because they are oriented, just for exams, and also, they used many commercial ways to attract students. This makes it look much commercialized. Although the teachers reached a certain external level.They may not have enough quality to teach the students, unlike teachers. They just give past papers for them to do, so I thought that the student can’t really learn in this environment. But I know that although some students are really weak in that particular subject. In that case, I do not object you to have a private tutor or go to tutorial schools. Another point to note is that many of the students going to tutorial schools do not pay attention in class. Maybe they do not get enough rest after a tiring day taking the tutor course. To my suggestion, seeking help from school teacher is better than taking tutor courses.”
As you can see above, day school teachers thought that tutorial schools only provide students with tips and pass papers. Private tutors and tutorial schools only concentrate on the syllabus tested in the exam. Some of the students may not pay attention in class if they have tutors. So the teachers do not encourage student to have private tutors or go to tutorial schools and they believed that if the students pay attention in class, they don’t really need to go to seek for tutors as most of them go because of trend.Studying in tutorial schools or with private tutors is a necessity or a tread, depends on who. For some of the interviewees of our survey, they think they really need to have this kind of help in order to improve their studies and to get good grades. But, at the same time, we can see different photos of tutors of tutorial schools placed in newspapers, magazines, even on buses. The photos of the tutors are like the photos of the movie stars, they are holding a pose, with fashionable haircut and colour. For this, going to tutorial schools may be just a tread. We often hear students saying, “Mr. Chan of ABC tutorial school looks handsome, let’s go to that school.” or “This Miss Kwok looks fashionable and she is slim, we should go there for a look.” The conversation above shows that people doesn’t really need the help of tutors; all they want is to see the tutors’ face, body… That is a tread. Some famous tutorial schools use big posters and advertisement to show off how good results their students have. Some may really wanted to have good results and may join, but some joined just because the schools are famous, this shows us tutorial schools and private tutors is a necessity or a tread depends on whom. We found out people who go to tutorial schools and private tutors may not be only, they are just estimating the tutors as stars, and discuss about his or her beauty, that is not a necessity, a tread spread fast, more and more people join tutorial schools and private tutors just to get on the tread, this is not a correct way.
But for necessity, some pupils who really want to get good marks and learn more new things, they choose schools and tutors in a different way. They may find out Mr. Chan of ABC tutorial school’s academic level, and what rewards and which college did he go to, instead of looking at his handsome face. Those people can have quality to get good results, the percentage of successful students who went to tutorial schools and private tutors are most of the one who choose tutors by knowing his or her academic standard.
