Today, Mr/Madam Speaker, I am here to talk about the tutoring industry, which I believe to be blatantly unregulated and deeply unfair.  

In Australia, around one in six students will use tutoring at some point in their schooling journey. However, paid tutoring has worsened educational inequality deeply, all while being unregulated and potentially harmful to children.  

Private tutoring is now a multi-billion dollar industry, with many students going to multiple tutoring centres, especially in preparation for the selective school test and ATAR exams. 

Many parents spend tens of thousands of dollars a year, with no proven benefit for the education system as a whole. There are about 5000 tutoring businesses nationally, and these centres cost thousands of dollars a year, widening the divide between those who can afford to send their kids, and those that cannot. They often use predatory, fear-based tactics, that aren't substantiated with evidence. 

 Moreover, private, 1 on 1 tutoring is not a good solution either – despite there being nearly 80,000 private tutors working, there is no standard regulation for them. Tuition can be of varying quality, and potentially taught by tutors with malicious intentions. With no effective regulation, families have very little ability to complain about a poor-quality service.

That is why, Mr/Ms. Speaker, I think we should begin to regulate this wild-west of an industry, to avoid the problem spiralling out of control. We should have mandatory safety requirements, including Working with children checks, and establish a state government agency to regulate educational and safety standards. 

 

Thank you all so much for listening.