Business Of Private Tutorials In India Now A Multi-Billion Dollar Industry

Working within the faulty infrastructure of a weak mainstream education system, students who desire to excel in academics invariably have to sustain on the private coaching centers for their studies. For all subjects and streams alike, the standards are high and the demand is ever-growing which has led to some cities or towns to become a tuition- hub in India.

According to a study conducted in 2015, Global Industry Analysts, the global private tutoring market is projected to surpass $102.8 billion by 2018. GIA figures state that United States, Europe, and Asia-Pacific (notably Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and China) are responsible for more than 90% of the global private tutoring market and most importantly South Korea alone is going to reach $19.5 billion - roughly 20% of the entire market. In addition, India is leading the way in online tutoring by offering professional linguistic and academic coaching capabilities at an affordable cost.

While Asia has clearly lead the global tutoring boom, U.S. is catching up. The mentoring industry existing in India, has had a record growth of almost 35% in the last five-six years. At present the size of private coaching industry is $45 billion and likely to touch $70 billion by 2017.

A few years back, there was too much noise about Delhi University cut-off demanding a full score of 100%. Some ridiculed the population, some blamed it on competition. Others said that's not fair at all!

As the world is coming closer, the need to be better than the rest is touching the sky. According to ASSOCHAM's survey, a whopping number of close to 87% of primary school children and up to 95% of the higher secondary attend private coaching classes.

Most of these classes run in metros like New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bangalore, and Chennai for civil services, law, C.A. or medical coaching urban towns like Jaipur, Chandigarh and Kota for engineering, Pune for Designing or Management etc. You won't be surprised to know that the proportions of kids relying on tuitions has increased by 100%. And in between 2006 to 2013, secondary school enrollments have also gone up by 92%.

With the increasing peer pressure, majority of parents are forced to rely on private tuitions for in addition to attending classes in school. Over 86% of parents think that they are ill-equipped or lack time to teach their children on their own and here's where coaching classes come handy. The statistics reveal that the middle-class parents have been spending 1/3rd of their monthly on their wards' private tuitions.

Amidst the general support with school education, youngsters are also engaging with coaching centers for competitive entrance examinations for professional courses or government exams. However, it does not mean that people's disposable incomes have risen or the coaching centers have become affordable. It is just the demand and supply forces that are working.

The idea is clear that the number of classes have increased rise tremendously, and this in turn has been promoting the culture of outstation students settling at these educational hubs. Over five Lakhs of private tutors are active in Delhi-NCR currently and with competition for increased admission intake into the best colleges intensifying, the demand for private tuition is rising continuously.

The survey further reveals that many of the best teachers of reputed schools and colleges have left their jobs and taken up private coaching, for the simple reason that there the monthly income of good tutors is equal to the annual salaries of school teachers.

The private tutors charge anything between Rs 1,000 and Rs 4,000 per hour per student on one-to-one basis, while group tuition costs Rs 1,000 to Rs 6,000 per month. The survey revealed an estimate of 78 per cent of parents spend Rs 1,000 to 3,000/-per month on tuition for a primary ward and above Rs. 5000 for the tuition of a secondary-level child monthly.

Factors Behind the Rise

- Exam Anxiety- The exam phobia is a major attributor for enrolling in coaching classes as it is seen as the most common solution amongst children who want to excel academically.

- Extra Push - Even the best of the best students have room for improvement, keeping this thought in mind even school teachers sometimes recommend classes as they have little time for individual attemntion.

- A sign of caliber- Signing up for tuition to score higher grades is also seen as a signal of high -intellect these days, it's a matter of pride.

It is not an astonishing fact anymore that private tutorials are expanding at an alarming rate in the tier-2 and 3 cities as more and more set of parents are spending staggering chunks of their incomes on it. The business is not only booming, it is picking up at a very high profitability. However, private tutoring further disadvantages children from lower family incomes and serves the needs of only those, whose pockets can mint money.