Tutors feeling PSLE heat

Doting father and tutor John Yeo tucks his three-year-old girl to bed every night, but he has not been able to do this frequently in the past month.

The reason: The PSLE season is here. Barely three months after setting up his Serangoon tuition centre, Learning Out Of The Box, which focuses on Primary 6 Mathematics, the 34-year-old already has 35 Primary 6 students.

For these and the thousands of Primary 6 students around the island, today marks the start of the most important exam of their life so far.

And the anxiety is not just felt by students and their parents - tutors are feeling the heat too.

Players in the industry said they typically see an increase in the number of Primary 6 students from July, about three months before the PSLE.

The first paper is for English and the last paper, for Higher Mother Tongue, will end next Wednesday.

Most of such students were failing miserably in the subject before their parents decided to sign them up for the class.

Some of them started classes just two weeks ago, after doing badly in their preliminary exam. And most of them have started showing improvement. For instance, one of Mr Yeo's students doubled his score from 20 to 40 marks in a month.

"Some of them were doing badly, scoring 10 or 20 marks out of 100 during the mid-year exam," said Mr Yeo, who has a degree in mechanical engineering.

Last week in Parliament, Minister of State for Law and Education Indranee Rajah said that the "education system is run on the basis that tuition is not necessary."

But she acknowledged that there would be parents who believe that tuition would give their child an advantage. Founder of Star Zest Tuition Agency Law Han Wei, who has been running the agency for the past 10 years, said that most parents who sign up their kids up for crash classes are not expecting too much.

'Emotional' decision

Instead, the decision is "emotional", he added. He said: "They just feel that it might be better to get tuition as the exam is approaching.

"There are a few parents who would expect more, but most parents are down-to-earth and practical with their expectations." Mr Law's agency saw a 30 per cent increase in the number of enquiries for home tutors, from June to July, while his year-old tuition centre saw a 50 per cent increase in the number of sign-ups for PSLE crash courses.

Ms Jolene Cheng, the director of Chinese tuition centre Trainwow, saw a modest 10 per cent increase in the number of students taking PSLE over the past three months. But she explained that last-minute classes would hardly work for a subject like Chinese, as it requires the right environment and constant exposure to the language.

Indeed, she reckons that parents should give their kids at least three to six months before they can expect improvements.

The PSLE has also resulted in longer hours and late nights for the tutors.

Mr Law, who tutored primary school students during his polytechnic days, said stress could come from preparation for extra classes that parents would request.

Mr Yeo has also been receiving more e-mails on a daily basis from parents of the kids he is tutoring, who would request for help on Maths questions. As the PSLE looms, up to one-third of Mr Yeo's students request for more lessons. His class size is between six and eight students, and they usually attend a weekly two-hour session. But for the past two weeks, some go for classes three times a week.

But Mr Yeo doesn't usually encourage piling on extra lessons on a regular basis. "We want students to be self-reliant and be responsible to do work on their own," he said. And the tutors have to play counsellor during this period as well.

Ms Cheng said: "The teachers, too, have noticed that the students are very stressed, and I reminded them to encourage the students and watch out for their emotional well-being."

Similarly, Mr Yeo, who was a social worker with eight years of experience before he joined the tuition industry, said some of his students have been telling him that the stress has kept them from sleeping well.

"I will encourage them to share their feelings and thoughts during class.

"The common worry is that they will fail again because they have been failing the subject since Primary 4," he said.

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