Tutoring has bullied its way into education systems all over the world with remarkable success over the past two decades. In Britain last year, more than a quarter of children in England and Wales aged 11-16 received some kind of private teaching outside school, according to the Sutton Trust, a social-mobility charity; in London that figure rose to over 40% of children. (Less than a fifth were doing so in 2005, the first year for which the charity collected such data.) British parents spend an estimated £2bn on private tuition each year, not including other extra-curricular activities such as sport or music lessons.
That picture is replicated across the world. A recent research paper points to a rise in the prevalence of “shadow education” throughout Europe. In Germany, Ireland, Italy and Spain at least 40% of school-age children have had private tutoring; in countries where there is a lack of faith in the state schooling system, such as Greece, that figure can rise to between 80% and 95% of all children.
Read the whole piece on The Economist's 1843 magazine here:
