Absolutely FASCINATING EU report about shadow education (private tutoring)

[Bonsoir]

I cannot recommend this report more highly to anyone interested in the shadow education industry, from whatever perspective:

www.nesse.fr/nesse/activities/reports/activities/reports/the-challenge-of-shadow-education-1

Happy half-term reading [hsmile]

The issues I would have with it are:

1. The language. The way it is discussed as being about maintaining privilege and a competitive edge. Of course for many people education is a competition, but don't most people want their child to be an educated person for a great many other reasons as well?

I find in general the attitude of governments to education to be quite disturbing; I am not convinced that the reason they don't want children to be educated under the direction of the family outside of state institutions is about equality at all. I think it is about them wanting to control what is learnt and by whom.

1. The idea that high achieving children don't need help. Surely highly achieving children are one of the groups least likely to be catered for by mainstream education, so one of the groups that most needs additional support?

1. The unfairness of it, at least in the UK, is a consequence of a collapse of shadow education opportunities for people on lower incomes. The WEA etc were set up by working class people for working class people to provide greater educational opportunities than those provided by the state. The decline of those organisations is complex, but is partly about a decline in the value people place on intellectual activity.

A very interesting report. Thank you Bonsoir.

I would absolutely agree with the report that those who are getting the tutoring are not really those who need it. I have successfully tutored my 2 dcs for the 11+. But I have seen other bright children in their primary school fail to get in because they have had no help with the exam technique. Conversely I have seen an average child get in with intensive expensive tutoring. I tutored the 2 other children trying in my ds year group so it wouldn?t be seen that ds had an unfair advantage. Sadly they didn?t get in, but one child didn?t turn up to half the sessions and his mother never pushed him to come. Happily he is doing well in all the top sets at the comprehensive school. I made the same offer for my dd?s year group but no one else wanted to even try, too disheartened by the school?s long term failure to get pupils in.

Looking at it from the other side, I can also absolutely see why middle class parents want to have tutoring for their dcs. I went to a girls grammar school where we had those inspiring enthusiastic women teachers that xxx mentions. I also went to a very expensive public school in the sixth form, as my parents were teachers there. The type of teaching and opportunities and confidence pupils get from that sort of expensive education can be a different league and parents who have been through either the grammar schools or public schools themselves know what the competition is out there and what their children are competing against! I have started tutoring my ds in science ? he may be at a grammar school, but the science teaching isn?t inspiring in comparison with the Science PhD teachers I got in the sixth form at the public school. Well at least I have a medical degree and can offer (I hope) a PhD equivalent science background. What I can?t do is offer my dcs the inspiring discussions and breadth of coverage of their fields that the Arts A level students got in my sixth form. That is the Oxbridge level of teaching the public schools offer. It is hit or miss whether you can get it at the grammar schools. One or 2 teachers can do it, if you get the wrong teacher then your mind doesn?t open up to the subject and you aren?t inspired to pursue it outside the A level coursework. I would totally agree that the teaching profession should demand high standards and decent salaries to attract the high calibre candidates.

Great discussion. Sorry for my essay! Off on school run and after school activity now but hope I can join in again later

Sorry Bonsoir it was you that talked about the inspiring woman teachers, not xxxx

This is why I (still) love MN - I can get stupidly excited about this sort of thing and find people who share my excitement and don't think it's sad or something

Thank you very much for posting this. It seems entirely reasonable that if the stakes are high, aspirational parents will do what they can to help their children reach the required levels.

Surely what needs to change in social terms is our educational policy leading to the highly specific demands of the exam-led curriculum and an emphasis on high quality teachers, with the commensurate rewards. This kind of competitive environment is inevitable in a highly individualistic society and far less in evidence in Scandanavia or The Netherlands, interestingly.

I am interested that people do not appear to be discussing the fact that the report states several times that the effect of tutoring is, in reality, of far less value (indeed, frequently of no or of negative value) in terms of raising achievement in children who are not performing poorly than either parents or tutored children believe. Are we accepting the necessity for additional work unquestioningly?

I did see that bit but agreed with the point that the children who receive tutoring generally have a very good start to begin with and that tutoring won't have such huge benefits for them as for the example the report gives of poor black children. If, however, it makes the difference between a middling child in the UK getting a C rather than a D, I would say that small advantage is worth it.

volumnia - I think the report draws attention to the fact that shadow education is highly variable in quality; sometimes it adds a lot of value and sometimes it adds questionable value.

Personally, I am an informed and difficult consumer of shadow education and think that I make wise purchases because (a) I am able to judge the quality (b) I spend inordinate amounts of time researching shadow education opportunities for my children. But do I think that this is really a good use of parental time? No. I would rather the schools my children attended were better. But they aren't. This is France and, like any other aspirational French parent, I know I need to supplement my children's schooling very significantly if I have any hope of producing decently educated 18 year olds (and beyond).

"Shadow education" - what a wretched pejorative Orwellian phrase! I had never come across it before.

It suggests that education not provided by the state is somehow a shameful thing to be pursued furtively well away from street lights, sunlight or CCTV cameras.

Maybe my local Indian takeaway, not being state-run, has a "shadow kitchen".

Volumnia, I would unquestioningly accept that a person who values education would want to pursue education far beyond that provided within the school day.

I would not dispute that the quality of tutoring is highly variable, and so is not always beneficial. But I do believe that families, with the support of schools, are ultimately responsible for their child's education. I think many problems arise from the belief that the responsibility ultimately lies within state education.

MillyR - "But I do believe that families, with the support of schools, are ultimately responsible for their child's education. I think many problems arise from the belief that the responsibility ultimately lies within state education."

You state a philosophical position, which is the one to which I also personally adhere; I view school and state education as one resource among many that I have at my disposal when educating my children.

However, that philosophical position is at odds with the state ideology position in many countries, France included, where the state is the great purveyor of the service of knowledge transmission between the generations and the sole responsible for the determination of a certain body of knowledge and skills that all citizens must acquire (or given the opportunity to acquire). I think that the proliferation of shadow education, in particular the sort identified in the report as the fast growing segment which takes children beyond levels and/or skills attainable within mainstream schooling, is a reflection of ever more parents adhering to a philosophy of responsibility for education similar to your own, or mine. The age of individualism is indeed upon us

Milly I agree but would posit that much of the tuition we are talking about is of the exam passing variety rather than education in its wider sense. The report notes that a large proportion of tutees in private education are receiving tuition and that the benefit to these children seems limited. evaluation of the benefits of money spent on wider educational activity is expressly left out of the report.

There is a difference between supporting underperforming children and gaining competitive advantage and I think the report suggests that some of the money spent on the latter is wasted. I'm not criticising parents - we are just responding to societal pressure and I've done it myself, in a targeted way and (I think) to good effect in the past. But is it right for society to be so individualistic?

Bonsoir, yes I agree with your post and I would the report in that light. The state has created state education to meet its own needs. The report should be read in that light.

As parents, we have different goals for our children than those of the state, including educational and intellectual goals. The report is not going to address that.

That should have said ' I would read the report in that light.'

I took the report to mean that certain subjects were left out - dance, drama etc. I don't think you separate Maths tuition from Maths as a wider educational activity.

I don't see what choice we have but to be individualistic. The state wants to educate our children in particular ways that are often at odds with what families want for their children. We see this time and time again in MN threads. In that situation, we have no choice but to teach our children our own intellectual ideas and values. I can't comment on Europe in general but in Britain society is in general anti-intellectual, so of course parents who value intellectual activity have to go against wider society.

Bonsoir I hear what you say about the siuation in France, but I do wonder if here in the UK much of the tutoring is actually not needed.

Children who attend excellent schools, have attentive and present parents and are doing very well indeed are often still tutored. It's as if the parents don't want to take any chances.

Comprehensive education was the product of a time when the government (and perhaps the populace?) was more socialist. Its aim was to integrate layers of society and erase differences. We now have a government and society which is far more individualistic and encouraging of elitism but the structure of our education system has not been changed to reflect that so there is a greater feeling of anxiety and unease, I think. Does that make sense? I don't have an answer though.

As you say, Bonsoir, it is fascinating. Thank you for posting it. One wonders if governments will pay any attention to it, as they should.

Milly, yes I did mean education in non-core subjects or in the sense of visiting museums, theatre, reading etc. Apart from families doing certain kinds of mathematical activities like code-breaking or family challenges in maths, which I count as wider activities, I don't know anyone who has their child tutored in Maths unless it is to pass an exam, but perhaps there are some such.

volumina maths and english tuition are huge in the UK. Kumon does very brisk trade indeed, much of it among affluent middle class families whose DC are attending very good schools and performing well.

In these parts there is almost an arms race of achievement.

But Word, isn't Kumon really just a means of improving SAT scores?

MillyR - "The state has created state education to meet its own needs... As parents, we have different goals for our children than those of the state, including educational and intellectual goals."

This is painfully true in France, where schools and higher education train future economically productive citizens with little or no regard for their emotional growth as humans. Anyone who lives in France for a while knows personally some formerly brilliant students of Polytechnique and ENA whose glittering academic successes and early careers have been crowned with the thorns of severe breakdown in early middle age and zero skills to overcome any form of personal setback (even quite minor ones)

I hear ya about state education in France bonsoir.
Was there ever a greyer system?

I don't know if this chimes with your experience, but friends still living out there spend a lot of extra on creative activities for their DC.
Here in the the UK, the state system seems to be increasingly wide to encompass all such activities but to the detriment of academic rigour. Thus tutoring in English/Maths etc.

My DD does extra-curricular cross-stitch, art, swimming, theatre and singing, as well as having English tutoring and we are planning to add clarinet soon. It sounds a lot, but school is so restrictive and dull that I think she'd shrivel up and die without all the add-ons. Admittedly in France the idea is that you can do your own educational thing on Wednesdays, with state indoctrination education only occupying four days a week.

I agree that in the UK state schools try to emulate private schools with fewer resources, with the result that the core curriculum doesn't get enough space. But, tbh, I am not overwhelmed with the quality of achievement in the core curriculum here in France either, despite the long dull days!

Ah yes, I forgot about Wednesdays.
Do the grandmeres all come out in numbers still?

Sure, grandparents come in handy as Wednesday chauffeurs, among the WOHMs doing 80% with Wednesday "off" ha ha ha and nannies from all corners of the globe.