Alternative Modes of Education

In a time of skyrocketing population, the problem of employment is easy to understand. Industries are not simply catching up fast enough with increasing populations. In other words, there is quite simply not enough jobs for everyone.  And a comprehensive solution seems to be far from sight.

And so the problem has evolved into a problem of competition with people vying for advantage to land a job. Under such condition, education have become a major advantage and the quality of education has become an important gain as  students who come from better schools often have the edge. But at the same time, good schools have limited absorbing capacities and therefore admission and retention in these schools have also become competitive.

Apparently, a solution has emerged from outside formal institutions of learning. In Singapore, students and parents have turned to special tutorial services or as they are better known, “tuition centres”, private educational institutions that of a range of academic enhancement and educational review services, for help.  Today, there are over a thousand tuition centres in Singapore which are thriving due to the increased demand for supplementary educational services outside regular schools and educational institutions.

Home Education and Tuition Center Services

Tuition centres in Singapore provide a range of services. After-school programs on the other hand are also special sessions that supplement regular formal school instruction. However, it mostly uses methods and strategies similar to this employed in formal school classroom management and is usually conducted as class sessions albeit in smaller group sizes. After-school programs usually has a pre-defined number of sessions, requirements and criteria for passing but are mostly more loose and flexible than formal school curricula.

On the other hand, home tutoring are one-on-one student-teacher learning sessions on specific subject like calculus or biology, or other learning areas like word problem solving.  In a nutshell, tutoring and other special tasks are competed and explained by guidance instructors who are often experts in the field or are regular teachers also and are therefore qualified tutors. 

Such services, specifically math and science tuition services, have become popular in Singapore since they are done on flexible and convenient schedules and within the safety and comfort of homes. These home tutoring services are also professional services conducted by tutors who have passed teacher accreditation standards.

Advantages of Home Education Services

The advantages of home tutoring is the obvious benefits of convenience and security where the qualified tutor directly goes to the student with no need the child to go anywhere. Since it is a strictly one-on-one program, it can be individualized or customized to focus on specific weakness of the learner. Compared to classroom teaching methods using pre-determined competency objectives and standardized test instruments, tuition centers provide qualified tutor who are also capable of addressing specific special needs and focusing on learning areas that require the most attention.  Tutoring session also creates an enhanced level of openness and confidence since it remove variables of being embarrassment in front of classmates. Compared to after-school programs, the number of tutoring sessions can also be tailored depending families specific targets and budget. Most tuition centers in Singapore provide tutorials sessions in competency levels and areas in Mathematics, Biology, Chemistry and formal English.

The problem however is accreditation. In several countries complete homeschooling is legitimate alternatives to traditional schooling schools. However, in some countries, it is prohibited and after-school services are therefore more valid options. Nevertheless after-school tuition services in Singapore essentially follows formal school curricula and pedagogy but still provides convenience and effectiveness since it removes all the drawbacks of large class interface and the hassles of daily commute.