Private tuition is a global phenomenon, and all the signs are that it is an increasing trend worldwide. Tom Maher’s excellent summary gives us some insights into the drivers behind this vast industry where ‘[i]n some cases, spending on private tutoring approaches the level of spending on the formal public system’.
In this blog post I want to highlight how the provision of private tuition is changing in the UK, and in some ways rather rapidly. Three inter-related aspects of this change are illustrated below:
Freelance tutoring
Research, discourse and debate about freelance work provide a rare opportunity to contextualize the private tuition industry in the UK. This is because tutoring in the UK has always been mainly freelance, with a report from 2009 indicating that around 84% of private tutors in England were self-employed.
Freelance working practices have in general proliferated sharply over the last 10 years, with 2014 seeing self-employment in the UK hit 4.5 million for the first time in history. Simon McVicker, from the freelancers’ organisation PCG, has recently commented that ‘[w]e are now in the midst of a revolution in how we approach the concept of work in this country’, and has hence called on government to introduce measures to support this vast army of independent workers.
Attitudes are changing fast, with freelancing no longer being seen as the poor cousin of employee status. Almost three quarters of people now prefer this kind of work to being an employee and according to PCG, the vast majority of freelancers are happy with their choice to go it alone, with the amount they are paid, and with the control they have over their work/ life balance.
As the private tuition industry continues to expand, it is therefore safe to say that more people than ever before are deciding that freelance private tutoring is a good part-time or full-time career option for them.
Disintermediated tutoring
Disintermediation means the elimination of intermediaries – or ‘middle-men’ – in a supply chain, resulting in lower prices for consumers. The rise of the internet has resulted in a high degree of disintermediation, for example in the travel industry where consumers can now purchase flights directly from airlines rather than using a travel agent. The basic mantra for disintermediation is ‘if you don’t add value to a process, then you’re only adding cost.’ And if you’re only adding cost, you’ll quickly be disintermediated.
It is interesting to juxtapose the concepts of disintermediation and freelancing, because as any personal branding coach will tell you, freelancers are in the business of promoting their unique expertise and attributes directly to clients. Transposed to the world of private tuition, it is now easier than ever before to develop one’s own ‘brand’ as a private tutor through (for example) setting up a website, advertising online, creating high quality promotional videos or posting verified personal endorsements on Linkedin.
As the notion of the ‘credible freelancer’ matures, traditional tuition agencies are therefore going to be under increasing pressure to add value to what they offer to avoid being disintermediated by a simple Google search.
Online tutoring
The final driver of change I want to highlight is the rise in online tuition, as discussed in a recent article in the Telegraph.
In a sense, a tutor’s physical location can be seen as another barrier which the internet is beginning to disintermediate. I say ‘beginning to’ because up until even 12 months ago, my impression has been of a deep skepticism among many parents and tutors over the value or appropriateness of online tuition. But might this skepticism now be waning? I believe so.
Firstly, the available technology for conducting classes and taking payments online is improving rapidly, with current options including WizIQ, Skype, Scribblar, join.me and Paypal. Secondly, anecdotally at least, concerns about the artificiality or unnaturalness of the medium are either starting to fall away, or simply being outweighed by the benefits. It is hard to imagine online tuition ever trumping face-to-face tuition in certain contexts such as music education. However, we’ve had several fascinating debates (for example at http://lnkd.in/dJ4b8Yg and http://lnkd.in/dnrHt4k), with tutors such as Matthew explaining that for biology A-level tuition:
my personal feeling is that online tuition is far superior to face-to-face as the student is relaxed and in their home environment (and so am I!) and they are not flustered by travelling. The delivery is identical – we can talk to one-another and they can see my notes in real time.
With online tuition, a tutor’s prospective client base suddenly multiplies a thousand-fold, and this arguably boosts the potential for both freelance and disintermediated ways of working. With the advent of commission-based online tuition platforms, cyber- or re-intermediation has already taken place in the online tuition sphere, and yet as our Linkedin discussions have made clear, many tutors, students and parents are already circumventing these innovations in the same way that the use of Skype circumvents traditional telephony.
Conclusion
This has been a short review of three highly interconnected trends towards freelance, disintermediated and online tuition from a UK perspective. However, it is abundantly clear that, because of native proficiency in English and the high standing of British qualifications worldwide, UK private tutors are extremely well positioned to exploit such employment trends to the full.
Three trends in private tuition | The Tutor Blog http://t.co/3GkiH2ZcrW via @thetutorpages #onlinetutoring #ukedchat
This is a brilliant article Henry. From what I’ve observed, the only people using tuition agencies are either those who require a tutor for a specialist subject or very well-to-do families who need to hire a tutor that has been vetted thoroughly. The majority of parents (and students) are now searching for tutors directly through the internet or through word of mouth recommendation.
I think that it’s more important than ever for tutors to market themselves and treat this like a real business and that principle applies to part and full time tutors. It’ll be interesting to see how these trends unfold over the next few years.
A truly brilliant article, Henry…could not have put it better myself! Well done…
Just a couple of observations:
The “add value or be by-passed” is going to pose a challenge for some intermediaries of that there is little doubt. There is a distinction to be made between intermediaries of once off transactions i.e. estate agents and those who provide “ongoing introductions”. The latter will be a little more resilient to disintermediation but they might still have problems justifying themselves of course especially if there are a number of intermediaries around offering a similar service.
When any of us hire either an intermediary or a freelancer there is anxiety about “getting it wrong”. We often grasp at straws to reduce the risk. For instance, in the past when I wanted a plumber, I asked my builder friend Charlie to recommend one. Why? Firstly, Charlie is a good judge of a plumber, I’m not. Secondly, I am hoping that the plumber will look to Charlie for further referrals and that will act as a control of some kind. Thirdly, if the plumber does something wrong, I can go and complain to Charlie. You see my builder Charlie has not asked to be an intermediary but to deal with a number of my fears of “getting it wrong”, I have turned him in to an intermediary albeit an involuntary one. I also asked him which other intermediaries to recommend e.g. British Gas or N Power.
I would add the following that Charlie is no typical intermediary: He has earned my trust over a number of transactions. If he knew of no reliable plumber he would tell me frankly and not recommend just anyone. He does not have anything to gain financially by suggesting someone. And finally, he goes out of his way to say that he has no “control” over who he has nominated. Yet he offers value to me and the freelance plumber even though he does not charge either of us. Why?
He has information as to who is genuinely good and reliable and while he does not parade it, his referral has some impact on the behaviour of those he nominates and both the client and the freelancer respect him and behave. (To keep in with Charlie I (the client) pay his nominated freelance plumber in double quick time). Not so much that we live in terror of him; far from it. We all trust and respect him. He’s a very soft-spoken collegiate sort of a chap. The plumbers he recommends respect him and the clients respect the plumbers he puts forward. Otherwise Charlie would dump the client. This is crucial too. So the intermediary can offer value to the freelancer by screening clients for them. It is my view that the tutoring intermediaries that will add most value are those that screen the client for the freelancer as much as the freelancer for the client.
A thoughtful article about the evolving world of tutoring.
Things are definitely changing, particularly in the world of online tutoring – full declaration: I am the co-founder of Tutorhub.
Increased demand is coming from uni students and parents. The price saving associated with being tutored online is a big attraction for people who maybe cannot afford the higher rates associated with home tutoring.
It’s a market that will attract lots more businesses, and prompt independent tutors to start their own online businesses.
Technology also remains an issue, in my opinion.
Your blog post has prompted me to write a blog post on why online tutoring is taking off in the UK, the issues, and how I see it evolving over the next year. It can be read at http://blog.tutorhub.com/2014/05/28/why-online-tutoring-is-taking-off-in-the-uk
Thank you for your hard work, Henry. This is a very well informed article in every sense. I am a freelancer and identify strongly with the disintermediation (it’s nice to have a word for it), although, because some parents and students need reassurance in terms of quality, I still receive some leads from an agency.
I understand the argument that online is a more relaxed experience but up till very recently many and perhaps most connections have been troubled by poor ISP delivery. It’s hard to stay relaxed if your client’s link to the internet keeps dropping off. I recently had Sky install a series of filters to keep my link ‘always on’ but it took 2 months of chasing to get them to do it. I still have a problem with how it’s possible to ensure a steady connection if your client’s ISP isn’t delivering a reliable service.
Another big problem is the length of time it takes to enter maths problems on a keyboard. I realised very early that online tutoring is so different that you have to learn to adopt a new approach. There are also issues about what and how you charge for sessions as well as start up costs in terms of getting the right ‘kit’ together.