Private tuition is big business in Asia as worried Asian parents strive to push their kids to the top of the rat race.
In Japan alone, families spent a maddening US$12 billion on private home tutoring in 2011 and in Singapore, with a population of just under 5 million, parents in the island state spent US$680 million in 2008.
Over in Malaysia, while figures of the country’s total expenditure on private tuition varies, around 90 per cent of children in cities and towns subscribe to private tuition.
But money and expenditure aside, tuition, and English tuition for that matter, is big business, and it is a bloody one. The team at Malaysia’s ERA FM radio station amalgamated scenes from the country’s drama-packed movie KL Gangster 2, and their own true-to-life audio reenactments, to show the rough and tough world of being an English tuition teacher.
The next time you look at your little tyke, remember the sufferings of English tuition teachers everywhere in Asia.
