Hugh Reilly: You’ll need a calculator to work out the cost of hiring a tutor – and it’s probably a waste

Published on Monday 23 January 2012 00:00

WE live in the age of ambulance-chasing lawyers, legal vultures who will swoop to cash in on a mishap that has caused injury, real or imagined.

To the professions that profit from the gullible, we must now add school bus-chasers.

A recent survey by Mytutor.co.uk produced scary findings for parents with disposable income to burn. In a shocking revelation that coincidentally is a highly effective marketing tool, the research discovered that a quarter of 11-year-old children cannot add two small sums of money without resorting to a calculator. However, concerned mums and dads need not despair because help is at hand in the shape of online tutors from aforementioned Mytutor.co.uk. (NB: A calculator is usually required when totalling the bill for a year’s private tuition.)

I could be accused of putting two and two together and getting five, but I detect a slight conflict of interest in a company supplying internet-based tutors carrying out a survey whose findings bewail the state of the education system.

Admittedly I’m speculating, but my guess is that in time of recession, parents have cut back on non-essential items such as luxury holidays, eating out and hiring an unknown teacher in the hope of boosting their child’s grades. Perhaps the penny has finally dropped with parents: no tutor business promises success. Given the lack of regulation in this aspect of private education, there is a distinct possibility that a classroom dud is the “expert” standing in front of a webcam tutoring your kid.

In my opinion, parents would be better off taking more time to be supportive of their child’s learning by checking homework and keeping in close contact with the school. If extra help is required, word of mouth is an effective way of discovering which tutors are worth their hourly fee.

Thankfully, the vast majority of young people do not require a tutor, as they are well served by the teaching profession in Scotland.

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florian albert

Monday, January 23, 2012 at 10:53 AM

Nobody minds Hugh Reilly taking a swipe at a company pushing its own products by means of a 'survey' they paid for. Going from that to say that the 'vast majority of young people' are well served by the teaching profession is a step too far. 'Teacher praises teachers' is as unconvincing as 'lawyer praises lawyers' or 'car salesman praises car salesmen.'

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duelaynomore

Monday, January 23, 2012 at 05:31 AM

Parental involvement, and encouragement, that is the key. Definitely not another TV in their bedroom. More bedtime stories and shared reading when they are small, and eating together at a table to encourage conversation when they get bigger. (not their waistlines).( I mean when they get a wee bit older). music and word games should be constant companions, especially on long car journeys.

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