Families pay up to $20,000 to tutor children for select-entry school exams

Parents are spending up to $20,000 for private tutoring to help their children get into Melbourne’s high-performing, select-entry high schools.

But there are calls for more accountability from the multimillion-dollar tutoring industry – which has taken a central role in the increasingly fierce battle for select-entry places – and for changes to the admissions process to give less advantaged children a shot at success.

Chris Chau, founder of Integral Education tutoring, says he would back regulations that provided a form of quality control in the tutoring sector.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui

Thousands of children are preparing for the select-entry entrance exam in early June, for many of them the culmination of years of study and coaching. Melbourne’s four select-entry schools are academically equal or better than high-fee private schools, but at a fraction of the cost.

Most of the students sitting the exam on June 2 will fail to secure a spot at Melbourne High in South Yarra, Mac.Robertson Girls’ High School near Albert Park Lake, Suzanne Cory High School in Werribee or Nossal High School in Berwick. Up to 5000 youngsters are expected to vie for just 1000 year 9 places across the four schools.

Wealthy families are over-represented among those who do secure a spot at the schools – which are supposed to provide high-ability schooling, regardless of families’ ability to pay – because expensive private tuition gives children from higher socioeconomic backgrounds an edge over their less well-off peers.

Now calls for change, both to the tutoring sector and the admissions process, are coming from tutors themselves.

Mohan Dhall, chief executive of the Australian Tutoring Association, said that with families spending up to $20,000 on coaching for select-entry tests, the sector should be regulated to crack down on “egregious claims” made by coaching colleges.

Dhall said a tutoring program could cost up to $2000 a term at four terms a year plus holiday classes over two years.

For that price, there was not enough accountability in the sector, he said.

“We see people claim that 90 per cent of their enrolments got into particular schools, they claim that they can coach a kid to do well on a test, they claim that their learning methods are somehow better than what schools do.

“There’s lots of things [being claimed] and there’s not much accountability.”

Dhall, who lectures in teaching methods at University of Technology Sydney, and his colleagues want tutoring colleges to be registered to protect parents as well as the tutors, who are often young university students vulnerable to underpayment.

“We’d like to see an element of that licensing reflect what normal consumers would expect; that is accountability, honesty, truth in advertising and that the claims being made are verifiable, and that uni students who are being used are paid appropriately,” he said.

“We’d like to receive some sort of openness about what the industry does.”

Wendy Chia and daughter Ashley in their Point Cook home. Ashley was intensely tutored before winning her spot at Mac.Robertson Girls’ High School.Credit: Penny Stephens

In NSW, where the select-entry system is much larger than in Victoria, the government changed the test in 2022 to make it less “coachable”.

Dhall said the Victorian government could consider similar changes to its admissions process to help disadvantaged kids.

He also suggested select-entry schools publish previous years’ exams, which would allow children to prepare without the help of expensive tutors, and that the government subsidise tutoring for those least able to afford it.

Chris Chau, founder of Integral Education, said his Melbourne tutoring company had a verifiable 60 per cent success rate and used only qualified teachers or tutors mentored by a qualified teacher.

Chau, formerly head of maths at Suzanne Cory High, said he would back regulations that provided a form of quality control.

“There are many non-qualified individuals who open their own centres or start some sort of independent tutoring. Because they have experience being a student in the classroom, then they have seen maybe about 20 per cent of what we teachers do, and have never actually been trained in the other 80 per cent,” Chau said.

“While they have very good intentions, they’re actually doing a disservice to the students. So I do feel that enhanced regulations will raise these industry standards, and it will benefit students as well as tutors, and ensure that we have that consistent quality.”

Point Cook mother Wendy Chia had her daughter, Ashley, tutored before she sat the entrance exam and believes it got Ashley over the line for her place at Mac.Robertson.

Chia’s younger daughter, Kaelynn, 10, is preparing to sit the exam, and Chia believes tutoring is definitely the way to go again.

“It’s expensive, but I feel like even if they don’t get in, the knowledge is still there so it’s worth spending, it’s not like it’s fun to waste,” Chia said.

The Education Department advises families to do their homework before hiring a tutor.

“Parents and students are encouraged to check the qualifications and experience of tutors they engage,” a spokesman said.

The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up here.