When walking along the Victoria Avenue in Chatswood during the school term, you are likely to see groups of school-aged students moving quickly between buildings, with backpacks over their shoulders and worksheets in hand. They are not heading to school, and many are not on their way to sport or a social event. Instead, they are moving between tutoring centres, libraries and private lessons.

For some students, this routine provides valuable support. A tutor may help them understand a difficult concept, recover confidence after falling behind or prepare for an important examination. For others, tutoring has become another compulsory part of an already crowded week: something they attend because their friends do, because their parents are worried, or because opting out seems to mean accepting a disadvantage.

The rise of “shadow education”

Private tutoring is hardly new. Families have long employed tutors to help children who are struggling or to prepare them for examinations. What has changed is its scale, visibility and place within the ordinary experience of schooling.

Advertisements for tutoring now appear everywhere: in shopping centres, on social media, through parent networks and even in students’ online feeds. Some companies promote individual attention and confidence; others advertise accelerated programs, examination techniques, selective-school preparation or impressive student results.

Education researcher Mark Bray popularised the term “shadow education” to describe private, fee-paying academic tuition that takes place outside school hours. That tutoring follows, or “shadows”, the formal school curriculum. As the school curriculum changes, tutoring changes with it. When examinations become more competitive, examination preparation expands. When families become concerned about particular subjects, tutoring businesses respond to that demand. It is difficult to determine exactly how many Australian students receive tutoring because there is no comprehensive national dataset. Recent estimates suggest that more than one in seven, and perhaps closer to one in six, Australian students receive private academic tutoring at some point during their schooling. The proportion may be higher in some suburbs of Sydney, where one estimate places it at approximately one in four. Australia’s tutoring sector has also been described as a billion-dollar industry, although its precise size remains unknown because much tutoring is arranged privately and never appears in official employment or business data. This uncertainty is important. We often speak about tutoring as though we understand its reach and influence, but much remains hidden in the shadows. We do not know precisely who participates, how many hours students attend, what they are taught, what families spend, and most importantly, how tutoring affects students over time.

Why do families choose tutoring?

The motivations behind tutoring are more varied than they first appear.

The traditional reason is remediation. A student has missed important learning, does not understand a concept or needs more individual assistance than a classroom teacher can reasonably provide during a lesson. This became particularly visible following the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic, when many families worried that students had developed gaps in their knowledge.

In such circumstances, tutoring serves a clear purpose. A capable tutor can identify a specific misunderstanding, explain it differently and provide targeted practice. For a student who has become discouraged, succeeding in a smaller and less public setting can also help them to rebuild confidence.

However, tutoring is no longer used only to help students catch up. Increasingly, it is also used to help students get ahead.

Students may attend accelerated tutoring classes before learning the content at schools. Others receive intensive preparation for the HSC, scholarship examinations, selective-school tests or school-based assessments. The objective is not necessarily to reach the expected standard, but to outperform it – and, inevitably, to outperform others.

There is nothing inherently wrong with wanting a child to succeed. Parents make sacrifices because they care about their children and want to provide opportunities. Students may also genuinely enjoy extension and seek challenges beyond what they currently experience in class.

The difficulty begins when tutoring shifts from a considered choice to a perceived necessity.

When parents hear that their kid’s classmates are receiving tutoring, they may worry that their own child will be left behind. When students discover that their peers have already studied next term’s content, they may feel that ordinary classroom learning is no longer enough. Research from different educational systems has found evidence of peer effects in tutoring participation: as more families invest, others can feel pressure to do the same. create an educational arms race. Each family acts rationally from its own perspective, yet the collective result shows there are greater family expenditure on education, longer student workloads and more anxiety, but with no guarantee that every student becomes a better learner or exam taker.

In this sense, tutoring sometimes functions as a form of insurance. Paying for additional lessons may reassure parents that everything possible is being done. But relief from parental anxiety is not necessarily the same as meeting a child’s educational needs.

Schools and Tutoring: Complementary or Competing?

In my work as an educator and researcher, I have rarely encountered a school that openly recommends widespread private tutoring. This does not mean that teachers believe no student should ever receive additional assistance. Rather, schools and tutoring providers may approach education from different positions.

Schools are responsible for teaching a complete curriculum to students with diverse strengths, needs and interests. Good schooling involves more than preparing students to reproduce answers in an examination. It includes developing conceptual understanding, communication, collaboration, creativity, independence and the capacity to respond to unfamiliar problems.

Tutoring, particularly when marketed around examinations, may have a narrower goal. Some providers deliver thoughtful, conceptually rich instruction. Others focus on predicted questions, memorised responses, shortcuts and repeated examination practice.

These approaches may improve performance in certain tasks, but it can also produce tensions. A student may be shown one method by a tutor and another at school, without understanding why the methods differ. A tutor may teach content well before it is introduced in class, leaving the student bored or disengaged when the teacher later develops it more carefully. Some students begin to treat school lessons as revision rather than as their primary opportunity to learn.

Teachers can also feel undermined when students challenge classroom instruction solely because “my tutor said something different”. Questioning a teacher is not itself a problem, students should be encouraged to think critically, but productive questioning requires understanding, not simply loyalty to whichever explanation was heard most recently.

These conflicts can work in the other direction as well. Schools should not automatically dismiss tutors or assume that all tutoring is based on drilling. Many tutors are skilled educators who provide valuable individual support. They may notice difficulties that are less visible in a busy classroom and can give students time to ask questions they were reluctant to raise at school.

The more productive question is therefore not whether schools or tutors are better. It is whether the two forms of learning complement one another or pull the student in competing directions.

Does tutoring actually work?

There is a tempting answer: of course it works. More teaching, more practice and more attention should produce better results. However, the reality is far more complex than it is commonly perceived.

Research suggests that well-designed tutoring interventions can indeed improve academic learning. Tutoring tends to be most effective when it is frequent, targeted to clearly identified needs, delivered individually or in small groups and provided by someone with strong subject knowledge and suitable teaching skills. However, a carefully designed tutoring program can work is not evidence that every commercial tutoring arrangement will work.

Private tutoring is extraordinarily diverse. It can mean an experienced teacher working individually with a student on a diagnosed learning gap. It can also mean a university student supervising homework, a large class completing worksheets; or a recent high school graduate following a generic program or an examination-centred approach teaching students to reproduce model responses.

The outcomes are therefore equally varied.

Tutoring may increase a student’s time spent studying, provide immediate feedback and make difficult work feel more manageable. Smaller classes can offer more opportunities to ask questions, while a positive relationship with a tutor can improve confidence and motivation.

The tutoring tax

Additional time does not automatically mean productive learning. Poorly targeted tutoring can repeat material the student already understands. Excessive assistance can create dependence, with students becoming reluctant to attempt problems without someone guiding each step. Examination drilling may improve familiarity with predictable questions without developing the flexible understanding needed for unfamiliar ones.

Tutoring also consumes resources beyond money. Every additional lesson takes time that might otherwise be used for sleep, exercise, hobbies, family interaction, independent study or simply rest. Research into tutoring’s non-academic effects presents a mixed picture: students sometimes report increased confidence and support, but heavy workloads, family expectations and competitive pressure can also create stress. For this reason, tutoring should not be treated as a silver bullet. Its effectiveness depends on the student’s prior achievement, motivation, learning needs, relationship with the tutor, the quality and frequency of instruction, and the degree of alignment with school learning.

It is also important to ask what we mean by “effective”. A five-mark improvement may appear successful, but what if the student has become more anxious or less independent? Conversely, a student’s marks may not change immediately, but tutoring may have restored confidence, developed better study habits or prevented them from falling further behind.

Success cannot always be reduced to the next report or examination result.

What should parents look for?

Given the limited education-specific regulation governing who may identify themselves as a tutor, the qualifications they are expected to hold, and the standards under which they operate, parents need to approach tutoring decisions carefully. This is especially important because families may pursue tutoring for many different reasons, ranging from genuine learning needs to competitive pressure or anxiety about falling behind. Parents should therefore look beyond promotional promises and headline results. They should consider whether appropriate child-safety measures are in place, whether the tutoring supports rather than undermines their child’s confidence and wellbeing, and whether it is producing the educational outcomes for which it was originally sought.


What problem are we trying to solve?

Is the child missing foundational knowledge, lacking confidence, seeking extension or preparing for a particular assessment? “Improving generally” is too vague to guide effective tutoring

Does my child want or accept the support?

Students do not need to be enthusiastic about every lesson, but persistent resistance may indicate that the format, tutor or purpose is unsuitable. Tutoring done entirely to a child rather than with them is unlikely to build independence.

Who is providing the tutoring?

Parents should ask about qualifications, subject expertise, teaching experience, child-safe practices and familiarity with the relevant syllabus. A high examination mark may show that a tutor was once a successful student; it does not automatically show that they can diagnose misconceptions or explain ideas effectively.

How is progress being evaluated?

A responsible tutor should be able to explain what the student is working on, why it matters and what evidence will show improvement. Progress should involve more than the number of worksheets completed.

Is the tutoring aligned with school learning?

Tutoring does not need to copy every classroom activity, but it should avoid creating unnecessary confusion. Parents should be cautious when providers routinely criticise schools, claim exclusive knowledge of examinations or insist that their method is the only correct one.

What is the cost to the child?

The financial cost matters, but so do time, sleep, motivation and wellbeing. More tutoring is not always better education. There should also be a point at which the arrangement is reviewed, reduced or concluded.

Perhaps the most important question is: Would we still choose this tutoring if we did not know what other families were doing?

Where do we go from here?

Tutoring is unlikely to disappear. It responds to genuine needs as well as to competition, aspiration and anxiety. A simple ban would neither remove those pressures nor guarantee greater equality. International experience suggests that severe restrictions can push tutoring into less visible and potentially less accountable forms. The realistic path is greater transparency.

Families need clearer information about tutor qualifications, child safety, curriculum knowledge, teaching approaches, fees and claims of success. The sector would benefit from stronger professional standards and more reliable evidence. Schools, meanwhile, should acknowledge that tutoring is part of many students’ educational lives and help families distinguish productive support from unnecessary academic escalation.

Most importantly, conversations about tutoring should begin with the individual child rather than with the market, the examination rank or the decisions of other parents.

When we see students rushing along Victoria Avenue on a Saturday afternoon, we should not assume that they are all being pressured, nor that they are all gaining an advantage. Behind every backpack is a different story: a student catching up, extending themselves, seeking reassurance, following friends or trying to meet expectations.

Tutoring can provide genuine support. It can also consume time and money without addressing the real problem. It may strengthen confidence, or unintentionally communicate that ordinary effort and school learning are never enough.

Tutors cannot sell success because success is never a product that one person can simply hand to another. At their best, they can offer knowledge, guidance, feedback and encouragement to complement teachers’ work at schools.

The task for parents is not to accept or reject tutoring as a whole. It is to look beyond one-dimensional promises, identify the purpose and decide whether the support being purchased is helping their child become not merely a better test-taker, but a more capable, confident and independent learner with good mental wellness.

Have Your Say: Share Your Perspectives as Parents on Private Tutoring

Do you have thoughts, opinions, or experiences regarding private tutoring and its role in your child's education? Whether your child currently receives private tutoring, has received tutoring in the past, or has never participated in tutoring, we would love to hear from you!

As part of a research project conducted by the University of Sydney, we invite parents to complete a short, anonymous survey exploring their perspectives on private tutoring and its influence on students' learning and educational experiences.

Your perspective matters, regardless of whether your child participates in tutoring. By sharing your views, you can contribute to a better understanding of how parents perceive private tutoring and its place within the broader educational landscape.

Participation is entirely voluntary, and the survey is conducted independently by the University of Sydney research team. No personally identifiable survey responses will be shared with the School.

https://sydney.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_56kJUyOmL6T2lwO

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