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Myths About Home Tuition
Parents only want the best for their children. With the increasing pressure to secure a bright future for their children, it’s no surprise that Singaporean parents value their children’s education so much. They make sure their children only receive the best quality education as means for them to have a more successful future. Singapore has undoubtedly one of the best education systems in the world. but when parents think of education for their children, they ultimately think of schools and chalkboards. They think of teachers and classrooms for their children.
School set ups in classrooms with multiple students per teacher has become the norm that parents may not even consider other alternatives. This is true to an extent. However, there are still alternatives present that can help students gain more in-depth learning they wouldn’t otherwise in schools. With many benefits to offer, home tuition has also become quite a staple in the Singaporean education scene.
Home tuition is a supplementary source parents can give their children to support them in reaching their academic dreams. In home tuition, students can learn in the comforts of their home and during their time. These additional lessons can be used to support what they have learned in school as well as if they want to further their understanding on a topic or subject.
Additionally, home tuition doesn’t just stop with academics. It is well known that tutors also teach students life skills they can also use in the future such as time management, discipline, and patience. They can also act as student’s mentors in times when they have to think about their future career and educational choices. More importantly, a tutor can be a student’s confidante and can help them regain their self-confidence through their continuous improvement.
Though home tuition offers many benefits, there are still some misconceptions and myths that surround the industry. These myths, if left to settle in the minds of parents and students, can leave an impact and may cause them to miss out on the help they might need. In this article, we are going to go over some myths surrounding home tuition and debunk them.
Common myths in home tuition
In this article, we’re going to tackle the myths and snippets of what misconceptions some people still have about home tuition followed by the truth and clarification of that notion. If you are a parent or student looking to clarify some negative-perceived notions about home tuition, this article is for you.
The Myth: Tuition is only for select kinds of students
This is a common myth wherein many thinks that tuition is only for students who are getting low or average grades. The misconception is that tuition is only reserved for certain types of students.
The Truth: Tuition can be for all types of students
Tuition helps in improving a student’s grades and overall academic performance. This is the main objective of tuition. However, this objective isn’t reserved for one type of students only.
Most home tutors are hired for struggling students. When the student is struggling to understand a topic or subject, a tutor can help them understand the topic by considering the factors that might have suppressed them from fully grasping the topic. These factors may include their learning style, which might not be considered in a huge classroom setting. It can also be their pace in learning, which could be the reason they are falling behind in class.
Since tuition is 1-to-1, they have more time to determine the weaknesses and help struggling students overcome them. Students wouldn’t have to feel pressured as in classrooms because lessons are personalized for them only.
As such, this also doesn’t mean that students who are already doing well aren’t also allowed to get home tutors. If a student desires enrichment in their interests for a subject, they, too can hire a home tutor. In this circumstance, the tutor can bring in additional learning resources for the student so they can learn further than what they are taught in school. They can also experience topics in real-life by going to museums or field trips with their home tutors.
Home tuition isn’t only about imparting knowledge. More than anything, it is about mentorship and engaging learning. Tuition also helps mold the child through motivation and attitude, as they go hand in hand with improvement in their studies. When the child sees their own progress, they become more motivated to do better and have a more open approach to learning.
The Myth: Tutors are not as competent as teachers
Anyone can be a tutor because tutors aren’t necessarily required with a teaching certificate and as such, they can’t be as good and effective as school teachers.
The Truth: A tutor’s qualifications and credentials are also considered
There are many home tutors that are NIE/MOE teachers. Additionally, there are also home tutors who are professionals in their own field who double as tutors to impart their knowledge to students.
While there are full-time home tutors who have made it their career, this doesn’t mean that tutors are any less competent than teachers. Their academic qualifications, including their grades, experience, and credentials are greatly considered. If parents are hiring through tuition agencies, they can be assured that tutors go through a process before they are qualified by the tuition agency to tutor students.
While home tutors can never replace a teacher’s role in a student’s life, they can also offer something more to the student. They offer customized lessons and mentoring, as well as advice along with different teaching methods adapted for the student alone.
Additionally, these home tutors also bring with them their experiences and values. They impart them to the student in order for the student to better understand the lesson and even topics outside of the syllabus or curriculum.
The Myth: Tuition makes the student rely on the tutor
Students who have tutors will rely on their tutors more for answering homework and wouldn’t be able to ace their exams without the tutor’s help.
The Truth: Tutors encourage independent learning
It is true that tutors also assist with their student’s homework. However, assisting is not the same with answering the homework themselves. Instead, the tutor may supervise the student while they are answering their homework or even check on it after they’ve finished answering.
Because people think that tuition is all about coaching the student, they also think this means that students aren’t encouraged to learn on their own. This is untrue. Tutors value patience and perseverance. They are with the students when they are still struggling with their lessons up until they have finally mastered and overcome their weaknesses. They challenge their tutees and impart knowledge and application skills so the students can apply what they’ve learned to their lessons. They enrich the knowledge students get from school, providing more resources and skills than to go with what they’ve already learned.
In a way, tutors provide support for the students more than anything. They still teach students, of course, and they help them with their weak areas, but they do so in ways that will set the students up for independent learning, wherein they can work with problems and provide solution by themselves.
Home tuition has a common objective. And that is to help the student improve. The main goal is to see the students reach their goals during a set amount of time. This is why expectations and goals are set during the first session in tuition.
The Myth: Effective home tuition is expensive
Getting a tutor is expensive and it’s only reserved for those who can afford it. Additionally, only the most expensive ones offer the most effectiveness.
The Truth: There are several tutor categories parents and students can choose from
One inhibition most parents have with tuition is the budget. They think that since tuition is private, they need to spend a certain large amount of money and that it is expensive. While there are significantly more expensive tutor fees, there are also those that fit most parents’ budget.
Most home tutors fall under three categories. In FamilyTutor, we have three categories of home tutors: part-time, full-time, and NIE/MOE-trained tutors.
Given the fact that most part-timers are still students or also professionals working in a different field, they wouldn’t have the flexibility full-timers might offer. This also means that their fees are also lesser than full-timers or NIE/MOE-trained ones. However, this doesn’t mean that they are any less effective. FamilyTutor takes into consideration their academic qualifications before they can be matched with a student.
In relation, full-time tutors have made tutoring their career. They dedicate their time and effort in tutoring and as such, provide more for their students as well. They have the experience in tutoring that can also help with teaching students of different background, learning gaps, and learning styles.
NIE/MOE-trained tutors admittedly costs more than the other categories. This is because they are trained teachers and some of them are still also teaching in schools. The advantage of hiring this type of tutor largely depends on the reason why parents want to hire a tutor for their child. If the student is having trouble specifically with exams, parents tend to hire them because of their experience in preparing for exams as well as techniques they can impart on the student.
When hiring a tutor through a tuition agency such as FamilyTutor, parents may request for a tutor under their budget. This is so they can still get the quality education for their child while escaping over-spending on a tutor.
More than anything, home tuition aims to help the student perform well. Understandably, it may not be free, as it is a job for home tutors. However, this doesn’t mean that parents have to engage in the most expensive tutor when they can stick to their budget and trust a tutor’s qualifications and experience to further the student’s development.
The Myth: Tuition only adds stress
Tuition only adds stress and extra workload to the students who already spent their day in school learning. On top of that, they wouldn’t have the energy after their extra-curricular activities.
The Truth: Tutors help with the workload and tuition doesn’t have to be stressful
Admittedly, a part of this myth is true but only under certain circumstances. It all comes down to how much the student can handle. If, as parents, you know that your child has too much in their hands and you will force them to take tuition, chances are, they will be overloaded with work.
However, the concept of home tuition isn’t to put more burden on the child but rather take some of those away. Through different methods that makes learning easier, tutors may even help the student free up their time to enjoy different pursuits or hobbies. Additionally, tutors can teach students techniques that can help them make time-consuming activities more efficiently done.
Overall, the attitude of the tutor and the student’s circumstance largely affects the student’s stress level. This doesn’t mean that the tuition is only to blame if the child is feeling burned-out from many activities. There are also other outside factors that can affect the student’s stress level such as their environment, classroom setting, peers, etc.
The Myth: You can’t change your home tutor
Once the tutor is hired, you cannot change the tutor especially only after the first session. They also charge if you request for a replacement.
The Truth: You can change your home tutor if they are not fit for you
Fortunately for parents and students, FamilyTutor doesn’t have a policy that you can’t change a tutor after they have been hired. Additionally, fees for changing a tutor are also non-existent.
It’s important for the tutor and the student to cooperate with each other to reach their main goal. If there are some apprehensions on the student’s side, they are entitled to request for a change of tutor. Tutors are matched according to student’s requirements but it doesn’t mean that they can’t request for a different tutor.
At the end of the day, tuition is still a transaction and a service. At any given time, the student or parent can cease the service. If the parents or student find the tuition ineffective or the tutor doesn’t match their standards or ideals, they can request for a more suitable one. As such, this is also one disadvantage of using a home tuition agency when hiring a tutor rather than hiring one directly.
The Myth: Tuition is only for exams
Students only get tutors when major exams are near to get better scores. You don’t need a tutor for the rest of the year.
The Truth: Tuition isn’t only for exam season
Unfortunately, this is a very far-fetched misconception that many still believe. Home tuition isn’t only for exams. While students want to get better grades during their exams, it doesn’t mean that tuition can magically make that happen for them.
Some students and parents wait until the last months before considering hiring a tutor for their children. While this can help with bringing up scores a little, this doesn’t do much with the overall grades. It has to be understood that grades are accumulated throughout the year. By scoring better in one exam, that doesn’t mean that they will magically get the coveted A.
Additionally, tutors also aren’t magicians that can transform a D student into an A overnight. Tuition is a process and with that comes a lot of patience, perseverance, dedication, and time. Last minute sessions are nothing other than crash courses. These may help the students for short-term but they will lack the long-term retention they need in order to properly understand the concepts for the more complex level of subjects or topics. This will also place stress on the students and can potentially cause more burn-out for them.
We highly recommend for parents and students to consider hiring a home tutor while it is still not too late. Are the last two months before the major exams too late? That depends on how the student is doing in his/her studies already.
However, by building up a solid foundation for the students at the beginning of the school year or when the weaknesses are more adamant, the child can reap more benefits. Taking smaller steps and seeing progress is better for the child in the long run.
Conclusion
Home tuition, like anything else, has its advantages and disadvantages. However, not all poses harm on the child. More often, it is the environment surrounding home tuition that makes issues about it and discourages students from engaging in home tutors. These are mostly baseless and are only hear-says.
Additionally, home tuition provides more concrete evidences of its advantages and showcases many benefits for students both academically and otherwise. Tuition also benefits parents as it frees up more time for them to focus on other things.
The above-mentioned myths are just some of the misconceptions we still face about home tuition. We hope that this article serves as an eye-opener for parents and students alike, and provide them with more positive perspective about home tuition.
Interested in hiring a home tutor? Check out FamilyTutor, the best home tuition agency in Singapore. We offer over 200 subjects for students from pre-school and even beyond university level. Here at FamilyTutor, we make sure your sons and daughters are in good hands!
Carelle
Carelle is a teacher who has been through the ups and downs of the teacher and learner life. She wishes for every learner to gain educational satisfaction that will help embody the people they want to be in the future.
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About FamilyTutor!
FamilyTutor is an established home tuition agency in Singapore! We match suitable home tutors for our clients not just to improve the students' academic grades, but also to build a strong rapport and meaningful relationship with the students and even the their whole family. FamilyTutor put every student in good hands!
If you need an excellent home tutor, feel free to call/WhatsApp us at +65 8777-2168! Our matching service is free!
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