Tuition centres in Singapore has continuously evolved to adapt and adjust to the changing education-related policies and the demands that the workforce has of its employees. Students are often apprehensive about adding on their schedule with more tuition and they aren’t sure what kind of factors they should consider when selecting a Tuition centre in Singapore.
Firstly, tuition costs a lot of money and it is important to consider affordability and transparency of all the fees. All tuition centres will charge a monthly tuition fee for the teaching service that they provide. However, even if these monthly fees seem relatively cheap, people should not be fooled.
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Usually, there are also additional costs for maintenance fees, administrative fees, materials fees and others. These fees may add up to become significantly high and the deceptively low monthly fees will no longer be as affordable as expected.
If a tuition centre is not transparent about these hidden fees it is important to be cautious about enrolling in it. Some tuition centres also have discounts if the student enrols in tuition for multiple subjects or other similar discounts. It may also be useful to look out for these discounts.
Secondly, every parent wants their child to have the highest quality of education. It may be difficult to judge the quality of teaching by the tutor in a tuition centre.
One way to guess the quality is by researching the qualification of the tutor. The higher the level of study that the tutor has completed, the higher the chance that they are good at teaching as they will know their content inside out.
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Moreover, if the tutor has had previous experience as a teacher, they most likely are also more skilled in teaching as compared to other tutors. Their experience as a teacher means that they have more knowledge about the education industry and teaching students in general.
However, this is not a fool proof strategy as a tutor who does not seem very qualified and does not seem to have experienced may still be a very skilled tutor and it is impossible to predict this.
Thirdly, there is also another way to determine if a tuition centre in Singapore has skilled tutors. Most tuition centres will have feedback systems online in their websites or social media platforms.
Some tuition centres will have websites with selected feedbacks of parents praising the effectiveness of the tuition but these quotes are biased since they are selected specifically to give a good image to the tuition centre.
Online feedback systems which display all feedbacks transparently will give an accurate indication of the quality of the teaching. At the same time, parents should not ignore the resume of the tuition centre as a good resume will also generally indicate higher quality but the true way to know is by reading feedback of previous customers.
Fourthly, it is important for parents to understand what type of learner their child is. No matter how skilled the tutor may seem, it is important for their teaching style to be compatible with the student for it to be effective.
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The three main broad categories that all students will fall under are visual learners, auditory learners and kinaesthetic learners. Parents must know which of these categories their child falls under so that they are able to choose a tuition centre that can cater to their learning style.
If parents want to be really particular, they can look into more specific subcategories of learning style that their child might fall under.
Fifthly, different students will prefer different class sizes. Different class sizes each have their own benefits in terms of how effective learning will be. Small classes are more ideal for students who want more personalised attention from their teachers and do not mind having many peers to study with.
Large classes are more ideal for sociable students who want to be able to teach and learn from their peers but are fine with not receiving as much attention and help from their teachers.
However, as the class size becomes larger and larger, the learning becomes much less effective and this is something that parents should look out for.
Lastly, attending for tuition is something that students have to do on top of already studying in school and at home. This may become very stressful and time-consuming for students and it is important for parents to ensure that this stress is reduced as much as possible.
One way to do this is by selecting a tuition centre that is near their place of residence. This will help to reduce any significant travel time. Many students may feel that their free time is being wasted if their tuition centre is too far from their home.
However, this also does not mean that parents should enrol their children at a nearby tuition centre even though the quality of teaching is bad. Parents will have to make a decision between selecting a near tuition centre vs a better tuition centre and the best way to do this is by communicating with their child to understand their needs.