Forum: Parents seem persuaded that tuition is necessary and not optional

I refer to the latest government survey on household expenditure, which showed that families in Singapore spent $1.8 billion on private tuition for their children in 2023 (

Spending by S’pore families on private tuition rises to $1.8 billion in 2023,

Jan 19).

Have efforts by the Ministry of Education (MOE) to de-emphasise the obsession with academic performance achieved the opposite effect?

Having been in the private education industry for over a decade, I have concluded that MOE’s moves to remove mid-year examinations and change the PSLE scoring system have instead heightened parents’ anxiety and persuaded them that tuition is a necessity, not an option.

It was reported that several parents whose children went through the Secondary 1 posting process in 2024 said they noticed a drop in cut-off scores by at least one point. This is consistent with my own observation that to meet the previous year’s school cut-off point and be guaranteed a place in the school, a pupil would have to aim for a score that is at least one point lower than the published score.

This intensifies the competition, and even the most reluctant of parents resort to sending their children to after-school classes.

There are also longer-term repercussions.

As parents naturally want the best for their children, well-resourced families will enrol their children in preparatory classes from a young age to give them the best possible academic head start. This puts families who are not as well-resourced at a disadvantage.

With the top 20 per cent of households by income spending over four times that spent by the bottom 20 per cent, there is a risk that educational inequality in Singapore will be widened.

Also, as more parents choose to outsource their children’s learning to the professionals, both parents would have to hold down full-time jobs for the sake of economic expediency.

While it is parents’ responsibility to provide materially for their children, they are first responsible for their children’s attachment needs, and should create a caring, present relationship with them.

Maybel Chong