JEDDAH, 24 May 2005 — As teachers across Saudi Arabia prepare tests for their students, tutelage is breaking out across the Kingdom as tutors tackle tickly topics with students who want to ace their exams.
And while students hope to be rewarded with good test scores, tutors are finding that tutelage can top teaching when it comes to financial rewards, and some are starting early in the morning and working into the wee hours to reap a revenue bonanza.
Students count on them to study for exams, revise the curriculums or even predict the exam questions for them according to their experience in tutoring. Demand is so high, tutors are tooting their own horns in advertisements and posters popping up everywhere you can stick a sign in the Kingdom’s cities.
Teaching is taking a back seat to tutoring for math tutor Zuhair Mahmoud. He charges an hourly rate, and his business is so popular, he doesn’t need to work as a teacher. “I make more money from private tutoring than as a regular teacher,” Mahmoud said.
It’s a good thing that accounting is closely aligned with math because Mahmoud is finding gold in those textbooks. “I take SR250 for two hours of tutoring; SR125 for a one-hour class,” Mahmoud said. “I think my students know I give good results and accordingly they pay the price gladly even though many people think it is too high for a tutor.”
Since this is their busiest time of year, tutors have no time to do anything but teach. Many tutors do not accept more jobs for tutoring since their schedules are fully booked. Some assign late-night classes or very early morning classes — around 6 a.m.
“I take my physics tutoring class at 6 a.m., which is too early for me because my tutor is too busy to give me a class at better times,” said Essam Abdul Ghani, an 11th grader. Some tutors trumpet that they offer classes in more than one subject due to their extensive qualifications.
“I took a tutor’s phone number from a posting on a wall near a school. His wife answered the phone and told me that her husband was busy giving a class, and he does not have time to give classes to more students since he already has too many. She said I should have called earlier,” said Suha Salim, a 12th grader. “I wanted to take classes with this tutor because he gives math as well as English classes, and I need help in both.”
Some parents hold that private tutors during exams are necessary. “If my daughter is not getting the proper education at school because of a bad teacher, I must get her a tutor to teach her what she didn’t understand at school, especially during the final exam days,” said Haleema Hamad, mother of a secondary student.
“If schoolteachers complain all the time about their students having private tutors, they should raise the teaching quality so that they fill this gap,” she added.
However, other parents don’t believe in tutoring — even during exams.
“We see a lot of fliers with tutor phone numbers on the streets these days. However, I never thought of getting tutors for my children. I want them to depend on concentrating at school and collecting the information for themselves, especially when I know they can do well at school. My children never asked for them. If they need help, they can take revision papers from their teachers and ask them questions whenever they need to,” said Abu Omar, father of two sons in intermediate and secondary schools.
Not all experiences with tutors yield positive results.
Abu Youssif, father of a 9th grader, can attest to this. “My son used to take private lessons with an English tutor. The tutor claimed that he could predict what the English schoolteacher would put on the exam.
He gave my son some questions and told him ‘Your teacher’s exam questions will be from the list I’m giving you.’ My son is still young and he believed the tutor. The exam questions were totally different! Since then, I told my son that he must depend on himself — and studying.”
