Tuition is a boom business in Singapore! Same as in Malaysia

A summary from The Star newspaper:

In Singapore, school test papers are hot commodity selling $30 and $40 per set. Designed by individual primary and secondary schools to test their own pupils annually, they have long been packaged and sold. The higher ranked the school, the greater the demand. In a suburban town centre, 12 or more tuition centres are flourishing together with the trade in test papers has becoming a booming industry, probably raking in hundreds of millions of dollars and providing jobs for thousands of people. A reporter who did a random interview with 12 students found that their parents spent an average $500 a month on their tuition fees. There was a father spent almost $960 a month to pay for his son's English lesson.

Some tuition even takes place online. where test papers can be downloaded more cheaply. Some top junior college graduates have taken it further by selling their study notes on the web. The Sunday Times conducted a poll in 2008 of 100 primary, secondary and junior college students and found that only three students did not have any tuition at all. Even some university students have sought special tuition but starting age is getting lower. Two in every 10 involve kindergarten kids. Contrary to belief, not all who seek help are students of average or poorer grades. They include straight A-students, too. A Physics tutor to 80 students reportedly earns about $20,000 a month. Even students such as undergraduates and junior college students are earning good pocket money this way.

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My opinion:

Tuition is essential for those students who are average, slow learner or obtained poorer grades. But, what happening now is tuition has became a trend or necessity in Malaysia and Singapore. I can understand why Malaysian parents have to send their children for tuition but I wonder why Singaporean parents are so kiasu despite of their higher quality of teaching compare to ours. Singapore schools supply a general education that is quite modern and diverse. It is winning accolades from some countries which have adopted its method of teaching. 

Nowadays, tuition becomes so commercialized instead of rendering help to those weak students with passion heart. I really hope that our school teachers put education as their top priority to develop our country human resource instead of making education a money spinner. Some school teachers teach certain subject so lousy in classroom but teach so well at tuition centre. No wonder, so many parents want to send their children to tuition centre and this situation encourages more tuition centres mushrooming in our towns.