As such, there has been an explosion in tuition services in recent years, both centre-based and home-based. The boom is such that some Malaysians have actually raised concerns about the expansion, as in some cases, the services are also of poor quality, according to a Star Online article by Nevash Nair.

The Rise of Home Tuition

Nevertheless, the saturated market has led to heavy competition among tuition providers, and home tuition in particular is seen as an attractive option due to several major reasons.

First, it is convenient, as pupils are able to come home right away from school and revise there, which lessens anxiety on parents’ part as compared to if they would have to take a detour to, and spend time at, a tuition centre. This also saves on costs for traveling.

Second, the traditional, one-teacher-to-many-students classroom model, which is seen as weak in terms of helping individual pupils grow in itself, is the antithesis of home tuition, which is one-on-one, with the attention of a tutor focused exclusively on just one student. This personalised approach lets the session proceed at the pace of the learner, which helps ensure complete understanding and learning.

Home tuition providers in Malaysia

Due to demand and the nature of home tuition services, providers have sprouted left and right, especially in such a geographically-diverse country like Malaysia. Most of these are agencies that only match and coordinate inquiries or tutorial requests between clients and tutors, who retain freelancer status and typically shoulder all their work expenses in exchange for higher compensation. A few major examples follow.

1. A+ Home Tuition

●        URL: https://www.aplushometuition.com

●        Number: +60 17 717 7838

●        Email: info@aplushometuition.com

Founded in 2015, A+ Home Tuition, to date, deploys about 6,000 tutors across most locations in Malaysia (mainly in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor, Penang, and Johor Bahru), teaching all subjects from preschool up to degree levels, including both national and international syllabi. They are the self-styled largest community of professional tutors in Malaysia.

Students request to be matched with a tutor online, answering a questionnaire that asks for their details, the subject/s tuition is needed in, and their availability. For cost efficiency, sessions must last for a minimum of 1.5 hours, although rates are still displayed and promoted on an hourly basis. These range from the national syllabus at the primary level (RM35 to 60) to the degree level (RM80 onwards), though the international syllabus at the secondary level also reaches RM120; still, these are only approximations, with actual fees varying depending on qualifications and experience.

Requests are posted on their site and Facebook page for tutors to look at, and the site itself also has a page where interested tutors can apply to teach with A+.

2. ChampionTutor

●        URL: https://www.championtutor.my

●        Number: +60 17 385 0212 (0900-2100 weekdays; 0900-1800 Saturdays)

Present in both Malaysia and Singapore, ChampionTutor differentiates itself through its Web platform, which not only employs management information systems and offers account management for both students and tutors, but also serves as a database to filter said tutors, numbering more than 2,000, to match client needs. Nevertheless, like A+, the matching is not fully automated, and clients can ring to request, with a maximum turnaround time of two days. The Web site provides an exhaustive and extensive booking service, with FAQ pages for both students and tutors alike.

Unlike A+, ChampionTutor caters to students as early as preschool all the way to post-secondary education, and also offers tuition in non-traditional subjects such as music, computer, special needs, and language. Tutorials can be done at the client’s venue or a centre; and rates are also not standardised, although tutors do follow a recommended range, with allowances for qualifications, background, and logistical arrangements.

On average, an undergraduate-level tutor teaching primary school students would charge RM25 to 30 per hour, while a professional or retired teacher attending an International Baccalaureate (IB) or diploma client can ask for RM80 to 100 per hour. These fees go entirely to the tutor, except for half of the first billing, which is the only commission paid to ChampionTutor.

Tutors must be Malaysian residents who are at least 16 years old and have been teaching for one year.

3. Tuition Hero Malaysia

●        URL: https://www.tuitionhero.my

●        Number: +60 12 211 9510

Founded in 2015, Tuition Hero has served more than 1,500 clients and enjoyed a satisfaction rate of 80% since, with a tutor network of 4,000. This platform places a heavier emphasis on customer support and relationships, as evidenced by testimonials regarding both the platform itself and its individual tutors showcased on its site. They also offer a mobile app for easier on-the-go coordination of the tutors.

Tuition Hero covers all academic subjects, as well as language learning for children and adults (English, Mandarin, and Malay), and teaches from preschool up to the degree level, covering both national and international syllabi. Requests are posted on the site for all to see.

Unlike other sites, Tuition Hero does not display a standard schedule of fees, but uses a calculator built into the site. These rates are the suggested market rates, but clients can also set their budget levels, and tutors’ backgrounds will also influence the rates they personally charge. For preschool, the usual hourly rate is RM35, while for diploma or degree, it is at RM120 to 150. If a session is to be conducted with more than one student, an additional fee of RM10 to 20 per hour applies.

Similar to ChampionTutor, Tuition Hero collects a commission in the form of just the first two weeks’ fees, but after the said two weeks’ sessions have been completed. Tutors must be Malaysian residents with six months’ experience.

4. Elite Home Tuition

●        URL: https://www.hometuitionmalaysia.my

●        Number: +60 13 944 5519 (0730-2300)

●        Email: info@hometuitionmalaysia.my

Elite Home Tuition caters to students from the primary to the degree level across national and international syllabi. They also have a special emphasis on IELTS, for Chinese students who want to study in Malaysia and need to learn English.

Although there is a suggested range of prices on the site (RM30/hour for preschool to RM50-60/hour for O-levels), any and all inquiries are directed towards the site’s feedback form, and it is not as informative as other sites.

5. DreamHomeTuition

●        URL: https://www.dreamhometuition.com

●        Number: +60 16 648 6729

●        Email: dreamhometuition@gmail.com

Founded in 2014, DreamHomeTuition caters to primary to pre-tertiary students, but also Singaporean maths, English, and science, and IT, English, Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil for adults. With its more than 1,000 tutors, the platform claims to have a 90% success rate in terms of marks improvement within six months, having served approximately 1,800 parents as of writing. Prior to sessions, DreamHomeTuition offers a free fifteen-minute consultation.

Rates are not displayed online and are obtained through direct inquiries only. Tutors are charged for administration fees and are matched to clients within 3 days.

6. MyPrivateTutor

●        URL: https://www.myprivatetutor.my

●        Number: +91 9830081584 (WhatsApp; India)

●        Email: support@myprivatetutor.my

The local partner of American-based LearnPick, MyPrivateTutor has a relatively longer history of attending students in Malaysia since 2009; and, as such, they have a more robust foundation and portfolio of services. They specialise not just in academic tutorials, but also extracurricular subjects like music, dance, sports, languages, and even business training. Furthermore, the format is not limited to home tuition, as they also offer online and centre-based courses.

Due to this variety in offerings, rates are not publicly posted online and are provide upon inquiry only, which can be done via email, WhatsApp, or the feedback form on the site. Customers can create an account on the site and use it to manage their requests. MyPrivateTutor does not charge commissions.

Tutors must be Malaysian residents and have basic academic qualifications and decent marks, especially in the subject/s they wish to teach.

7. TuitionMall

●        URL: http://www.tuitionmall.com

●        Number: +60 12 343 6703 or +60 16 382 2022 (0900-2100)

●        Email: enquiry@tuitionmall.com

Tuition Mall is an online agency that specialises in being a directory of tutors and centres, with a tutor count of 17,000 and centre count of 710 as of writing. The centres can arrange to be advertised for free on the site, and clients can quickly filter down the tutors to the specifications they need, which are also comprehensively asked of on the request form. Outstanding or pending tutorial requests are displayed on the site publicly.

The agency returns queries within 24 hours, and then matched tutors within 48 hours. It does not take a cut from fees paid by clients, only referral fees from the tutors themselves. Average hourly rates range from RM25 (Standard 1-3) to RM60-80 (diploma or degree), but are not standardised or uniform across the network, and can adjust accordingly depending on the tutor’s experience, the client’s location, and other factors.

Tutors must be Malaysian residents and have basic academic qualifications and decent marks, especially in the subject/s they wish to teach.

Bringing home tuition and technology together

Due to the personalised and one-on-one attention and service a home tuition tutor provides, the extent to which technology is utilised is not as much, as it is not necessary anyway. Still, even home tuition has its weaknesses. In going to a client’s house, a tutor spends time and money on the commute, and compensates by charging higher. They are also humans who cannot divide themselves and be in different times and places at once, so they may not always be available if they are occupied with other matters or commitments. By extension, they would not be available 24/7, or sole proprietor-tutors or freelancers would not be able to send someone in their stead. And, on the other hand, some pupils may not actually require the services of home tuition. If their needs were relatively easily done, it may not be worth all the time and resources spent to match a tutor with them and devote the entire afternoon to a session, only to get it done quickly to the extent that the time spent revising was shorter than the commute time.

Online tuition is not new, especially with language exchange and teaching sessions, where one-on-one ‘home’ tuition sessions are conducted via Skype or similar at the convenience of both teacher and student. Although children’s attention span could waver when availing of online tutorials, the benefits outweigh this risk: it saves time and money on both ends, freeing both up to be more productive. Done properly, a digital platform can offer the privacy and adapted approach of in-person, one-on-one home tuition.

In maths’ case, there is one such platform that aspires to these visions: iMath, a Singaporean startup now expanding to Malaysia that aims to sustain and scale quality and flexible revisions for maths via technology. On the one hand, pupils can access community discussion boards and ask any number of questions they like for free, to be answered by peers or tutors. On the other hand, if they want to take it further, they can pay for a half-hour 1-on-1 video call with a tutor. This allows for scaling up while at the same time retaining a personal touch to its users, the same way platforms like italki do for language learning.

Because maths can also be a complex subject like foreign languages that parents would also possibly have difficulty helping their children in, it is the perfect subject to take digital as it makes tuition efficient. The aforementioned complexity also leads to more users because more people would be needing assistance, creating a virtuous cycle of people helping each other leading to more users. In addition to the discussion boards, there is also a virtual library of sample tests; on the tutorial side, the app works to match students and tutors by schedule and preferences, and pushes notifications to users. Sessions are recorded automatically so these can be reviewed to the users’ liking afterwards.

Tutors are also collectively assured of a steady stream of users coming from different circumstances, and are not required to conform to a uniform style of tuition, thereby being free as well to teach the way they wish, whenever they wish. Compensation is not an issue, as the app guarantees it and even helps them monitor and track fees with a dashboard.

iMath, thus, presents a win-win situation for all. Pupils pay cheaper due to time efficiency on tutors’ ends, and also have free resources that may not otherwise be available with traditional home tuition. They, too, enjoy efficiency as they only need a mobile device and Internet connectivity to be able to study whenever, wherever. They are also encouraged to be part of a learning community as they themselves can also post answers on discussion threads, which teaches them to help others. Since it is specifically for mathematics, tutors on the platform would be more maths-oriented than standard home tutors who may be perceived as jacks-of-all-trades-but-masters-of-none. Both students and teachers can insert using iMath into their schedules, and do not have to worry as much about considerations pertaining to, for example, gender and distance, because everything is conducted online but remains private and personal.

iMath is now available for download on both the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store or visit their website at www.imath.sg .