to be astonished that there are approx a million tutors in the UK

[grovel]

and only 450,000 teachers. According to the Times today.

Wow. I wonder how they count that, though?

What are they classing as a tutor? What level of training do they have?

I was amazed at statistic of 7% private schooling in this country, so I know what you mean.

Nearly 1 in 10 (or was before the recession).

Are they including music teachers. 1 million seems a bit high.

I find that a bit hard to believe. Although it does depend how you count them. One of DDs friends had some extra tutoring from a teacher - just an hour or so a week. Some will probably be students/retired people doing an odd evening.

The number of teachers sounds roughly the right ball park.

big business - scared parents - crap and unfair education system.

If they are counting everyone who teaches 1-1 or in small groups, it could be right. They could be including tutors in music. I will say, as well, plenty of tutors provide special help for children with learning difficulties, and do so communicating with schools. The stereotype that tutors are bumping up results for rich parents isn't totally true.

I know of a state school in N London where every single child has a tutor from about year 3, tutoring either for the 11+ for private/grammar or to get into the top set in the local state secondary. This is first hand knowledge, not hearsay. Not uncommon.

Every child in a school getting tutoring - just little a exaggeration there maybe. Have you really spoken to every parent in the school. Either its a very small school or maybe its every child in your social circle? Don' t disagree that private tutoring is very common but some people just can't afford.

As others have said, there are loads of different kinds of tutor. There are music tutors, sports tutors, dance tutors, art tutors, 11+ tutors, individual subject tutors, learning support tutors for pupils with LDs, college and university level tutors for foreign students, foreign language tutors for people of all ages, professional examination tutors, tutors who just run essay mills do "proofreading" of coursework, short-term workers at big tuition centres... It's not all aimed at the 4-19 year olds, and very few of them will be working for more than a couple of hours per week.

A lot of graduates become "tutors" and so the youth unemployment rate is a reasonable explanation of this.

There are only 11-12 million children in the UK. Take out the under 5s (about 3 million) and the ones without tutors, it seems unlikely...

But tutors wouldn't just be for children, presumably?

Mainly, though, I would think...

Do all the TEFL people count as teachers or tutors?

Are they including me? I did a bit of tuition as a student in the late 90s but haven't since.

There are also a lot of tutors for adults, learn direct etc

Don't believe that under 5s don't have tutors.

At one point 2/5 people in my famil were tutoring and 2/5 were having 'tuition' - both DB and DSis have dyslexia so had additional help for that (1 tutor) and both had private music lessons (3 more tutors).

Seems too high, wonder how they counted tutors (anyone who listed it as their occupation?). If each tutor had 10 children on their books, that would be 10million tutored children, more than the assumed 9 million in the UK above 5yrs ?(MrsTerryPrachet's numbers).

So for every child with none, there is another with 2 tutors (music and academic perhaps)... and possibly we'd be looking at a vast number of children with 3+ tutors per child!

We live in a highly tutored area and perhaps some children might have 2 tutors (music and academic)... but that isn't every child, and I doubt the ones that do have 2 would outnumber those with none...

Seems very high.