The private tutoring scenario: contributions to a comparative analysis Alexandre Ventura António Neto-Mendes Jorge Adelino Costa Sara Azevedo Department of Educational Sciences University of Aveiro Portugal Comunicação na XXII CESE Conference – Changing knowledge and education: communities, information societies and mobilities. The World in Europe – Europe in the World, Granada, 3 a 6 de Julho de 2006, ISBN 84-8491665-0. 1 The private tutoring scenario: contributions to a comparative analysis1 Alexandre Ventura António Neto-Mendes Jorge Adelino Costa Sara Azevedo Department of Educational Sciences University of Aveiro Portugal Abstract – Private tutoring, which we will analyse in this paper, has earned our attention due to several reasons: i) the fact that it is practically a worldwide phenomenon, even though educational systems vary from country to country; ii) the fact that the repercussions of private tutoring on pupils’ results may provoke a reequation of equity and equality of opportunity principles; iii) the belief that the financial costs sustained by the pupils’ families, on one hand, and the rising number of private tutors available (working part-time or full-time), on the other, grant this phenomenon a considerable social and economic importance. This approach privileges a qualitative analysis of the private tutoring scenario, with the aim of getting to know better some of its forms: its exercise as the sole employment of the tutor or as a supplement to the salary earned in another activity; private tutoring as a self-employment or employee activity; private tutoring that takes place in a local tutoring centre; private tutoring that takes place in a tutoring franchise, at a national or multinational level. By conducting a comparative analysis of the phenomenon, we will try to show how private tutoring is increasingly being carried out in organized businesses (tutoring centres), especially in big cities. These tutoring centres are supplementing or competing with schools increasingly using systematization and specialization parameters. Introduction Private tutoring is a widespread and worldwide phenomenon. In fact, we think it is safe to say that the “worldwide expansion of schooling” (subject that has been studied, among others, by John W. Meyer and that has deserved, in Portugal, honours of an anthology organized by Nóvoa & Schriewer, 2000) has as a correlate the worldwide expansion of private tutoring. Even though the history of private tutoring is mostly still unwritten (which is not the case, as we know, with the history of schooling), it seems plausible to admit that the development of modern educational systems and the 1 Research carried out in the Project “Xplika - The private tutoring market, school effectiveness and students' performance”. Research team: Jorge Adelino Costa (coord.), António Neto-Mendes e Alexandre Ventura. Project financed by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (Foundation for Science and Technology) and by the Programa Operacional Ciência e Inovação 2010 (Operational Program Science and Innovation 2010). 2 consolidation of the “school grammar” (Tyack & Tobin, 1994; Nóvoa, 1995), particularly the centrality achieved either by collective pedagogy (“teach all the students as they were one”) either by the examination system, created a propitious environment for the development of “alternative” educational responses in the form of private tutoring. Not aiming to be exhaustive, we will now present some arguments that prompted us to make the statement presented above: i) private tutoring permits (although not in every case) individualized teaching, which contrasts with the mass schooling offered by modern educational systems; ii) private tutoring may present itself as the space for homework doing, which shows yet another dimension of its possible functioning as a complement to the regular school system; iii) private tutoring can also have the function (perhaps one of the functions most appreciated by the clients of these services2) of exam preparation, the most important being the university entrance exams; iv) private tutoring can also perform the function (more social than academic, let it be acknowledged) of support to the family, offering services of spare time occupation, vital for a nuclear family, which is becoming smaller as time goes by, and with high rates of employment outside of the domestic sphere. To underline the importance of private tutoring in the educational context of the different societies seems one of those commonplaces that apparently nobody disputes. Nevertheless, that importance has not yet permitted this theme to occupy the space it deserves, be it from an academic, political, social or economical point of view. We have already expressed these concerns in prior studies (Costa, Ventura & Neto-Mendes, 2003; Costa, Neto-Mendes & Ventura, 2006), even if privileging different approaches from the ones that inspire the present article. The expression “shadow activity”, which is frequently associated with private tutoring, seems revealing of what we are stating. We have discussed until now the academic and social importance of the private tutoring phenomenon, but we would not like to forget its socio-economic impact in the Portuguese context. This can be seen in two perspectives: on the one hand, the individual effort demanded of each family and that cannot be neglected, known as it is the low salary level in Portugal in the context of the European Union; and on the other, the impact of private tutoring as an economic activity, involving thousands of tutors, to whom it is a main or part-time activity – although there are no studies about it, it is 2 We do not possess empirical evidence that permits us to support a judgement of this kind in what concerns the Portuguese situation. There are, nevertheless, studies being carried out in the context of this project, which will contribute to a deeper and richer understanding of this topic. 3 commented by many parents that pay for private tutoring that many tutors are reluctant in delivering a receipt for their services, a receipt that can be added to other education expenses to be included in the family’s tax returns (IRS – Tax on Individual Revenues, in Portuguese). These informal economic practices “feed” the so-called “parallel economy”, which according to some studies’ estimates represents between a quarter and a fifth of the Portuguese GDP. From what was said above a main idea stands out, which we would like to emphasize: when we talk about private tutoring we have to move away from the idea that it is a simple topic. We are facing, in fact, a complex phenomenon, represented by a diversified set of practices that we have already tried to illustrate in analysing its penetration in the different continents (Costa, Neto-Mendes & Ventura, 2006). We will try in the following pages to focus our analysis in this diversified set of practices that show us, and probably increasingly, the assertion of a social occupation – that of the tutor – that finds, at least in Portugal, a fertile ground for its expansion in the access blockage to the education system of certified teachers that due to this situation see private tutoring as a form of alternative employment (Neto-Mendes, 2004). Private tutoring and its different forms As we mentioned in the introduction, private tutoring can be provided in several forms. The providers can be teachers or students, working on a self-employed basis or as employees of a commercial structure that pays them a salary (Glasman and Besson, 2004: 53). Private tutoring can be provided on a one-to-one basis, in the home of the tutee or of the tutor, in small groups of five or six students, in a private tutoring centre or in a school classroom after regular school hours (Glasman and Besson, 2004: 53). In some countries private tutoring is provided in large classrooms or even in big conference rooms equipped with television screens (Bray, 1999: 21). The size of the private tutoring business ranges from the small not-declared individual activity to the big company that operates internationally and is quoted on the stock market (Glasman and Besson, 2004: 53). “The curricula used by the tutors may be tightly structured or they may be somewhat ad hoc and dependent on the specific needs of tutees at particular times” (Bray and Kwok, 2003: 612). We are going to explore some of these different forms of private tutoring in the following pages. 4 Private tutoring undertaken as a secondary activity Private tutoring undertaken on an individual basis, in which the tutor provides tutoring to only one student (or a small group of students) is the oldest and most traditional form of private tutoring. For example, Ireson (2004: 110) indicates that in the United Kingdom private tutoring has a history as a respectable employment for university students looking for financial support and for teachers wishing to supplement their salaries. We believe this to be the case in several countries. In this case, private tutoring is undertaken as a supplement to a main activity that the tutors hold, it is provided in their free time, and its revenues are not, in many situations, declared to tax entities. Private tutoring is, in this situation, a “shadow activity” as what is earned by carrying it out is beyond the reach of taxing services (Bray, 1999: 28). As we are told by Hrynevych et al. (2005) this is a very common occurrence when private tutoring is provided on an individual basis. Private tutoring in this form operates, therefore, in an informal way, without contracts or affiliation to any type of organization or professional order. According to the Regional Association for Professionalized Training in the Canary Islands (Asociación Regional Canaria de Formación Profesionalizada - ARCAP) private tutoring that is undertaken as a secondary activity, not subjected to taxes, and not even declared to the Social Security services, is a submerged economical activity and is being dealt with in a permissive way (ElDia.es, 2005).