Since I started working in the educational industry, I got many opportunities to talk to parents and to know about the various concerns parents have for their children in term of schools and education.

It is no surprise that many parents today (especially in Singapore) engage tutors to give their children tuition. In fact, I know of many children having private tuition for many years. And there are parents spending $200 to $400 each month just on tuition for their children.

That's a lot of money, isn't it? It is no surprise that the private tuition industry in Singapore is a million dollar business every year.

Having said that, many parents whom I have spoken to, very openly shared with me that their children's school results do not seem to improve in spite of the tuition.

In fact for some of them, their school results actually deteriorate as they move higher in the education system. These parents feel quite discouraged too. They really want to do something to help their children to improve; however other than engaging tutors for their children, they just don't know what else they can do. And ironically, tuition does not help them and they are spending so much money on it.

Personally I have nothing against tuition. On the contrary, I truly believe that tuition can be helpful for students who have a weak foundation in the subject. With the guidance from good tutors, these students can build their foundation and they can progress with more confidence and achieve better grades.

Having said that, why are so many children not doing well in their school despite having private tuition?

In fact, one parent told me recently that her son who is now in Secondary 4, has private tuition in Math since the beginning of Primary 3 - and that's a total of 7 years. And during these 7 years, the family has spent around $10,000 just on Math tuition alone. And the result is - his grade before the tuition is 51% while in Primary 3 and in last year's final year exams (i.e. in Secondary 3), her son's Math result is 59.5%. A mere of improvement of only 8.5% over the 7-year period!

There are a few possible reasons why students are not doing well despite having tuition at home. However there are two very important and common reasons to this issue but are unknown to many parents, teachers and students. They are:

1. Students are not aware of what they don't know

The beginning of true wisdom is to learn the art of knowing what you don