Eton change starts boom in tutoring

September 4, 2017

• Topical

from The Times

Eton and other elite schools have led to a boom in private tutoring in the last ten years because they no longer give precedence to families who put their child’s name down at birth, a conference was told yesterday.

The demise of places awarded on a “who you know” basis has fuelled competition for top schools, and this has been intensified by the influx of the international super-rich wanting the best education for their children.

Neither poor teaching nor bad schools was behind parental demand for tutoring, and that not all families were doing it to “keep up with the Joneses”.

Leading independent schools had become vastly oversubscribed in recent years, with demand far outstripping the number of places available.

“One of the most important factors has been that Eton ripped up the system of giving priority to children registered at birth, and most independent schools followed suit. Now children apply to six, seven or eight schools.

“It’s changed the mindset of parents away from thinking that access to top independent schools is about where you come from and who you know. Instead it’s about how hard you work.

“At the same time, London has become the world capital of finance and has attracted a lot of people with resources who are very ambitious on behalf of their children.” A lot of those coming to London from abroad held education and top grades in very high esteem, Mr Orr-Ewing said at a recent tutoring conference.

Tom Maher, president of The Tutors’ Association, said he was surprised at the level of hostility tutors faced from schools and teaching organisations. He said some schools were out of date for refusing to work with tutors to help children.

He likened setting up an association for tutors to “herding unicorns”, because there were agencies, study centres and individual tutors, and said that the arrogance of some was one of the blocks to unifying the disparate groups.

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