Our Community
Students flock to tutors for more than flashy image
by Cheung Lok-sze
Private tutors, with some of them being portrayed as pop stars in the education world, are posing challenges to school teachers in motivating students to learn and in helping them achieve better public examination results.
Students who have attended private tutorial classes say those tutors are able to explain difficult academic topics for easy understanding, to provide them with useful notes and to lecture with a variety of teaching tools, such as animations, videos and instant messages.
More importantly, many tutorial classes are focused on coaching students in the skills and techniques to score higher marks in public examinations, the students say.
Student Kot Ka-yan, who took tuition in economics before sitting for his public examinations, said he did not pay attention in school because his teacher did not teach well.
Mr Kot said in private tutorial classes, economics concepts were explained clearly. Tutors provided students with notes and highlighted key points, and the exercises given were similar to past examination papers, he said. ¡§Tutorial classes gave me confidence to sit for examinations,¡¨ said Mr Kot, now auniversity student.
Some other students, who are happy with their school teaching, still attend tutorial classes to try to achieve higher marks in their public examinations. Tam Kai-yiu, a university student, said his secondary school teachers were good, but he just wanted to benefit more from tutorial courses, which gave more exercises to students.
However, the promotion and teaching methods of private tutors have raised many eyebrows in the city.
Flashy advertising hoardings and posters of professional-looking tutors and catchy slogans are placed in busy districts where most youths hang out, like Causeway Bay , Mong Kok and Sha Tin. Those advertisements can also be found in newspapers, magazines, subway trains and even TV broadcasts on buses.
Tutorial instructors teach with videos and notes packaged in fancy presentation. They crack jokes in class to entertain their students. Popular and leading tutors even have their own teams of staff to prepare class materials.
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A tutorial centre advertises in a billboard in Mong Kok to attract students' attention.
