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MOE studying how to discourage tuition centres from playing on parents’ fears
The amount spent on tuition, which includes lessons conducted at home or at centres, has risen over the years.ST PHOTO: SHINTARO TAY
Elisha Tushara
UPDATED FEB 06, 2025, 05:43 AM
SINGAPORE - The Ministry of Education (MOE) is studying ways to discourage tuition centres from undesirable advertising practices that tap into parents’ anxieties and fear of missing out, said Minister of State for Education Gan Siow Huang.
Ms Gan was replying to Mr Liang Eng Hwa (Bukit Panjang), who asked if the MOE would instruct tuition centres not to advertise their programmes outside school premises.
Mr Liang witnessed it happening outside a primary school in his constituency on the first day of school on Jan 2.
“We think that it unduly induces parents to sign up their children for tuition, and that is not healthy. Our schools certainly do not support such practices,” she said.
Ms Gan was responding in Parliament on Feb 5 to several MPs, including Dr Wan Rizal Wan Zakariah (Jalan Besar GRC) and Mr Yip Hon Weng (Yio Chu Kang), who had asked about the rise in private tuition spending and what measures the ministry would take to mitigate its impact on educational equity and social mobility.
To this, Ms Gan said that data from the Household Expenditure Survey 2023, conducted by the Department of Statistics (DOS), showed a gap in tuition spending between households of different income levels.
Consistent with global trends, in which wealthier parents tend to use their resources and connections to support their children’s development, Ms Gan said parents in Singapore enrol their children in more enrichment classes or pricier tuition, hoping that it will help them do better in studies.
She said MOE is not in a position to intervene in such personal decisions.
According to the DOS survey, families in Singapore spent $1.8 billion on private tuition for their children in 2023.
Released in December 2024, the latest figures indicate that the uptick in educational expenses in 2023 compared with those from previous surveys was due to higher spending on private tuition and pre-school education.
The amount spent on tuition, which includes lessons conducted at home or at centres, has risen over the years, from $1.1 billion in 2013 to $1.4 billion in 2018.
On average, households spent $104.80 each month on tuition in 2023, up from $88.40 in 2018.
The top 20 per cent of households by income spent on average $162.60 a month on tuition – more than four times the $36.30 spent by the bottom 20 per cent.
Separately, Ms Carrie Tan (Nee Soon GRC) asked what signal MOE is sending to parents of Primary 1 pupils, who are identified as early as the third week of school as having weakness in a particular subject and subsequently pulled out for additional teaching support.
Ms Tan said that while such measures are intended to help pupils improve their weaknesses or to catch up, underlying the premise is a sense of competition.
Ms Gan replied that if schools identify certain children who seem to be weaker and falling behind in basic literacy or numeracy skills, the teachers will want to bring this to the awareness of their parents.
“We understand that sometimes some households may not have the resources or the abilities, and that’s why we have specialised academic intervention programmes for primary school students who need more support in foundational skills.”
She added that programmes like these have seen good outcomes and help in building the confidence of pupils, especially those from lower-income households.
“It is not in any way intended to ask the parents to send their children for more tuition.
“If anything, it’s to raise awareness of the parents, so that more can be done early to support the learning, and to set our children up well for the longer term,” she said.
