Students these days genuinely feel that tuition is almost essential to aid their education. The quality of education and its difficulty level has increased exponentially over the past 10 years. Education in this day and age prepares students to specialise in specific fields and students are compelled to stay ahead of the curve all the time. This is inevitably challenging and students may feel helpless many times as they would feel that there isn’t much breathing space to work in their own comfortable pace.
Academics has become a marathon for students whereby they are expected to compete with one another and stress about strategies and techniques to further push themselves; sometimes beyond the boundaries which cause breakdown and downfall which is indeed unhealthy.
Source: Edutopia
Tuition does not alleviate a student’s stress by reducing the workload in any way, rather, it prepares students to adapt to the fast pace and work with efficiency and complete assignments effectively. Further looking into this concept of tuition, there has always been a tug-of-war between one-on-one private tutoring and tuition centres; about which one is the better option.
Parents are often unsure about the exact differences between the two and about which one their child should opt for in order for effective learning. Both private tutoring and tuition centre teaching has their own set of advantages and disadvantages and to understand which is the better option, we need to list out the pros and cons, weight them and analyse to arrive at our conclusion.
#1: TUTOR TO STUDENT RATIO
This is the first factor which parents look at and hence lean toward the option of home tuition in most cases. This is one of the biggest differences between tutoring centres and one-one-one tutoring indeed. The class strength will be much lesser in one-on-one tuition and this smaller student to teacher ratio is an important factor that allows students to be so much more focused during lessons as there are no sources of distractions around them. However, in a tuition centre with many students, there is a high chance of undue distractions that could be created and tutors may even waste their precious time disciplining them to maintain a conducive learning environment.
#2: CUSTOMISED TEACHING
We all know the phenomenon that liquid takes the form the shape of the glass it’s being poured into. Similarly, every student is unique and has different learning needs as well as different strengths and weaknesses. A good tutor, especially in one-to-one tuition, will be able to give personalised guidance and this is one of the biggest advantages. In private tuition, tutors will change their teaching methods and style, as well as techniques and strategies in order to suit the student they tutor.
Whereas in tuition centres, a tutor can only at most use certain strategies to help students with slower learning pace to catch up. An example could be grouping the slightly weaker students together and allocating the stronger students to each of these groups for peer guidance. Nonetheless, the kind of customised learning that students get from private tuition is extremely useful and, in this aspect, private tutoring is indeed advantageous.
#3: CONVENIENCE
Students who attend private home tuition often can do it from the comfort of their own homes. This eliminates undue stress factors like travelling. This is a particularly convenient option for upper secondary and junior college students who have to spend a lot of their time in schools due to extended curriculums and extra-curricular activities.
BOTTOM LINE
It is pretty obvious that attending private tuition has many advantages. However, ultimately, it is what a student feels comfortable with. Some students prefer private tuition to get customised feedback, while others just do not enjoy the attention and prefer attending lessons with other students. It is up to students to decide what is best for them!