StudentMediaWire

Students are being overcharged for private tuition, according to research by a UK tutor comparison website.

“Although the private tuition industry is in fact unregulated by government, tuition agencies act as quasi-regulators, and convince parents and students to pay over the odds for their lessons,” says Henry Fagg, founder of The Tutor Pages.

Their research concurs with a report by the World Bank, which advises that the UK government could take steps to monitor the private tutoring industry and make it more competitive.

“The UK tuition market is valued at well over £1 billion a year, yet it is still dominated by agencies which standardise prices and keep them artificially high,” states Fagg, himself a private tutor. “They were set up in a pre-internet age, but in an unregulated industry there is no reason why parents and students shouldn’t employ a tutor themselves on the basis of quality online information.”

Parents and students have to fork out at least £5 extra for every hour of tuition when using an agency, the research found. In contrast, The Tutor Pages allows browsers to compare the quality and price of tutors online, and then contact them for free. ‘We ask tutors to decide a price and then submit an article on their area of expertise, so that parents and students can make a considered choice over who to hire,’ says Fagg.

The World Bank report published this autumn reveals that, compared to other countries, the UK government has always taken a hands-off approach to private tuition. Next year, however, measures will be introduced in the UK to tighten up.