Evolving micro-level processes of demand for private supplementary tutoring: patterns and implications at primary and lower secondary levels in China

Abstract

Recent decades have brought global expansion of private supplementary tutoring, and China is among countries in which patterns have been especially dramatic. National survey data indicate that 29.8% of primary and lower secondary students had received private supplementary tutoring in 2014, with proportions rising at higher levels of the school system. However, such statistics present only a snapshot of demand and might suggest that decisions to invest in tutoring are one-off in nature. This paper draws on interviews to show changing patterns of demand by individual parents at different times. Factors influencing parental choices include not only cost and availability of time but also children’s academic performance, children’s different stages of schooling, and education system reforms. Over time parents may expand or reduce their demand, change balances between academic and non-academic tutoring, and switch between different types and providers of tutoring. This paper thus shows that analyses of demand need to be more nuanced than tends to be the case in analyses of large-scale survey data. The paper is grounded in the Chinese context, but has conceptual implications of wider relevance.