AS PARENTS spend much of the academic year manically darting around to take their kids to and from one private lesson or other, a recent EU report sheds light on the fact that Cypriot parent’s private tuition spending matches a whopping 17 per cent of the government’s public school spending each year.
The independent report sited Cyprus as one of the highest spenders on private tuition in Southern Europe, outmatched only by Greece.
With the most recent figures available dating back to 2008, the amount consumed on private tutoring reached €111.2 million. The report only focuses on the afternoon tutoring of academic subjects and does not include sports, dance, theatre and other ‘hobbies’. It also does not include the money spent by parents sending their children to private schools.
The trend is a similar one across much of Europe with private tutoring now having become a booming business as parents set aside more and more income to give their children an extra leg-up on state-provided education.
“These figures reflect a feeling by an increasing numbers of families that the provision of mainstream schooling is inadequate to meet all their expectations, and particularly for the achievement of their children in relation to that of other young people,” writes author of the report, Mark Bray. “Private supplementary tutoring of various kinds is used to bridge part of the gap, and especially to improve and maintain their children’s competitive advantage.”
The report states that policy makers responsible for mainstream schooling can learn a great deal from looking at the scale and nature of this supplementary education, reflecting on the reasons why families seek private tutoring and on the responses of the market.
As might be expected, the most popular subjects for private supplementary tutoring are
ones which are essential for advancement, which in most systems include
mathematics and national languages. Maths is the most popular private lesson in Cyprus, on par with similar trends in Luxembourg, Latvia, Germany, Austria, Portugal, Romania and Hungary.
Mother of two Panayiota Agapiou complains about all the time and money she spends taking her kids to private lessons which include maths, English and Greek. While her younger nine-year-old daughter only has extra English tuition, her 16-year-old has private maths, physics, history and English lessons.
“I spend an average of €300 a month, sometimes more,” she says. “And that’s not during the months before exams when the lessons intensify.” Having lived in Australia where private afternoon lessons in core school subjects are a rarity, Panayiota blames the state education system in Cyprus for not making enough provisions to deal with kids that really need a little extra help or push.
“If a kid is weak in a certain subject, they will just get left behind because some teachers don’t care enough or have the time for them. And I’m not just talking about my daughter – I know plenty of parents who agree that everything is very rushed and plenty of students just get left behind.”
Posing an obvious burden on family finances and time, Panayiota spends most of the school term “dashing around like mad” to handle it all. “And then there’s things like theatre that the eldest wanted go to this year which would be nice. But because of all the other things there’s just no time, it would be impossible.”
Alexia Christodoulou shares her opinion, having to spend plenty of money and time taking her three kids to private lessons on subjects which she feels need extra attention. “It’s just too much. I spend about €450 minimum on their lessons each month and next year the older one (now 16) will have to go to even more lessons,” she says.
Does she believe this reflects badly on schooling? “Oh yes, definitely. Some teachers show passion for their profession and work on the kids, others are rather indifferent about if the children do well. So if they want to get good grades in their exams and not be left with gaps, they simply have to go to private lessons.”
“I would encourage the ministry to take a good look at who they employ because I’m sure some teachers just have the right connections and get in there. Some people keep their posts for years and years and are just no good. What about all those long lists of new people waiting to get a job?”
The Education Ministry insists that they are doing all they can to ensure that the best teachers are given work. “We’re currently debating a new plan that will put stricter rules in place when determining what teacher is given the post. But this is all under discussion as part of a series of educational reforms and we can’t yet disclose details or say when the new system will be in place,” says a ministry spokesperson.
“We can’t deny that it is a big thing in Cyprus for parents to spend money on private lessons but that’s not to say teachers are no good. Some parents just want their kids to do even better and others see that a child might simply need extra attention on a given subject. Teachers are certainly not in schools just by chance or because they have the right connections.”
Meanwhile, in light of the fact that there have been a great number of complaints that state schools don’t give children with learning difficulties extra attention, the Ministry is now admitting certain remedial structural changes need to be made.
Hence, the first official step in implementing educational reform is the introduction of new September timetables in primary schools, with a number of hours introduced each week for teachers to focus on the difficulties of individual pupils, based on their needs.
“Educators will be allocated extra time to work with pupils who are facing difficulties or extra time will be given for lessons where there are greater difficulties,” said Education Minister Andreas Demetriou at a recent cabinet meeting.
In the long run, the Ministry hopes this will help tackle the overwhelming phenomenon of private afternoon lessons.
