Demand intensity, market parameters and policy responses towards demand and supply of private supplementary tutoring in China

Based on some longitudinal studies of private tutoring in twelve cities, towns, municipalities and provinces of China, the paper endeavours to depict demand intensity, articulate market parameters and reflect on policy responses towards the demand-supply mechanism of the vast shadowy educational phenomena at primary and secondary levels. Such educational phenomena are so hidden that there is a complete lack of official statistical figures in measuring the full scale of tutoring and identifying tutors in some cases. In Hong Kong and Macao, parents and their schooling children take up responsibilities to consume various types of tutoring without state intervention into quality assurance. In Mainland China, local ministries of education prohibit home tutoring delivered by daytime teachers to their daytime students whilst take a laissez-faire approach towards mass tutorials that run in private business sphere. Lastly, a multi-level societal movement framework is recommended with strategic action plans in school practitioners’ and policy-makers’ perspectives for effectively monitoring or hampering the growth of such shadowy educational phenomena in China. Copyright © 2010 Education Research Institute, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea.