This article is a response to Hai-Anh Dang and F. Halsey Rogers research: “How to Interpret the Growing Phenomenon of Private Tutoring:  Human Capital Deepening, Inequality Increasing, or Waste of Resources?”

Dang and Rogers explore the rise in private tutoring companies over the past few year and the significance of this occurrence.  They explain that private tutoring helps specifically because it is a more flexible form of education.  In countries such as Japan, students who utilize tutors to supplement their education nears 60%.  Additionally, Dang and Rogers note that in the more affluent sections of America parents are sending their preschoolers to private tutors in order to give them an edge.^1»

As should be expected, their research found that in general private tutoring showed positive results.  What caught my interest was a question the researchers posed, “A question for policymakers is whether from a broader social perspective, the availability of private tutoring increases overall welfare. Are the societal gains from private tutoring likely to be greater than its costs?”^2» In fact, this research shows:

High-demand households that would formerly have chosen private schools may now choose to enroll their children in a combination of public schools and private tutoring. As demand for public schools increases, the costs to the government might be expected to rise, and producer surplus to private schools will fall.  But because we are assuming that the public schools are on the vertical portion of their supply curve—that is, that they have reached capacity—the quantity of education provided by the government does not actually increase, and neither will government outlays. And standard micro analysis makes it clear that the total gains to households and tutors through the public school/private tutoring combination should exceed the losses in the private schools sector. Thus compared to the situation in which households face only a choice between public education and private education alone, our graphical framework suggests that offering the opportunity to supplement a public education with private tutoring increases welfare for households and the society as a whole – at least in the standard model.^3»

In essence, this initial research shows the value of private tutoring in today’s education.  For those on you who have been following my previous editorials on Education and Role of Tutors, I proposed that tutoring in a Web 2.0 society will be available to anyone, at anytime, and completely personalized for the individual.  If these initial findings are correct–and I do believe that they are–then it is possible that we are on the verge of an educational shift.  In support of this possibility, Dang and Rogers estimate that long-term private tutoring may actually substitute for public education.^4»

Overall, this research by Dang and Rogers is excellent.  They ask the right questions and present unbiased results.  Where, then, is education headed?  In the end, the final decision is up to the parents and policy holders of our society.  I for one expect the private tutor sector to continue to grow.

1. Hai-Anh Dang and F. Halsey Rogers, “How to Interpret the Growing Phenomenon of Private Tutoring: Human Capital Deepening, Inequality Increasing, or Waste of Resources?,” The World Bank Development Research Group Human Development and Public Services Team (February 2008, http://www-wds.worldbank.org/servlet/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2008/02/25/000158349_20080225153509/Rendered/PDF/wps4530.pdf), 3-4.  Interestingly, they also note some indicators show “that private tutoring is more popular in countries with weak and deficient public education systems” (Ibid., 7).
2. Ibid., 14.
3. Ibid., 15 (emphasis added).
4. Ibid., 17.

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