No tutoring experience? 'Just lie to parents'

Some tuition agencies tell tutors to deceive potential employers about their qualifications and teaching experience, a check in Singapore shows.

Clarisse Lim, 11, had been having problems with mathematics.

So, her mother, Madam Kelly Lek, 36, an administrative executive, decided to get her daughter a private tutor.

She wanted a tutor with at least a year's experience, but the first tuition agency she approached sent her an A-level holder with only three months' experience.

Clarisse was unable to understand the tutor's lessons as the methods used were not what she had been taught in school. Her mother then turned to a second agency, asking for a tutor with good O-level English results, among other things. Instead, it sent her a polytechnic student whose English grade was just the opposite.

Said a frustrated Madam Lek: "It was only when I asked to see her O-level certificate that she told me, 'I don't want to fool you. Actually, I scored only D7 in English. But the tuition agency told me to lie to you.'"

Six years ago, there was a spate of newspaper articles about tuition agencies telling tutors to lie about their qualifications and tutoring experience.

Since then, nothing much has changed, if a recent Straits Times experiment is anything to go by.

A journalist called 20 tuition agencies which advertised for tutors in The Straits Times classified ads, and posed as a 17- year-old with average O-level results but zero tutoring experience.

Nine of the agencies told her to lie that she had at least a year's experience.

Four took down just her contact number and address, without even asking for her qualifications and experience.

Three took down her detailed particulars and expressed difficulties in finding her a student.

Another four turned her down, saying they accepted only A- level holders.

The managers of the nine agencies denied asking the tutors to lie.

But one of them, who wanted to be known only as Tan, said that getting the tutors to lie was a very common practice in the tuition industry.

"If you tell the parents that you have no experience, 10 out of 10 parents won't want you. They don't want you to experiment on their child. Even if you don't have any experience but you tell them you do, they can't find out if it is true," she said.

A tuition agency's income is related directly to the number of tutors matched with students, so it may not be surprising that some resort to unethical means to earn a quick buck. Most tutors hand over half of the first month's earnings to their agency as a commission.

Unlike tuition centers, which are registered with Singapore's Ministry of Education, tuition agencies do not come under its jurisdiction as they are registered as businesses or companies with the Registry of Companies and Businesses.

But some may be fly-by-night operators which disappear after taking a bite from the $320-million-a-year tuition pie.

School principals advise parents to check the qualifications and experience of the tutor they engage.

But most parents interviewed said they did not make it a practice to do so.

Linda Low, a housewife in her late 30s, engaged a female tutor from China via an agency to coach her two sons in Chinese. She did not check her qualifications as she felt that the tutor's teaching style was more important.

"I am around when she teaches my sons and I can observe and monitor her attitude and teaching style," she said.

"Besides, my kids are only in Primary 3 and 5, so I do not require a tutor with such high qualifications."

-- The Straits Times