By Lucy Carroll and Cindy Yin
Private coaching colleges are claiming to have taught hundreds of HSC high-achievers, including almost a quarter of students who scored top marks in the toughest maths course last year.
Experts warn that the rise of commercial coaching centres – some running HSC tutoring courses costing $5500 a year for a single subject – undermines school teaching and exacerbates inequalities in the education system.
One teacher at a Sydney selective public high school estimated 80 per cent of students at the school receive private coaching. “Many start before high school, especially for maths, so they are forever a term ahead of the syllabus. It can make it difficult for those not in tutoring,” said the teacher, who spoke anonymously to talk freely about the issue.
The influence of coaching and tutoring colleges has grown over two decades. Credit: iStock
“Over-coaching is a concern, where they are in tutoring classes five days a week. It can be excessive.”
The estimated billion-dollar private tutoring industry has grown rapidly over two decades, with unregulated coaching centres offering selective school test preparation courses and HSC coaching in maths, physics and chemistry.
At least five Sydney HSC tutoring colleges offer accelerated courses, in which students learn concepts a term before they are taught in the school classroom.
One Sydney college, which charges up to $2000 a term for its mathematics extension 2 course, is claiming it tutored about 330 students who achieved the top band in the subject last year.
That college, Dr Du Education, whose students sit an entrance exam and learn in streamed classes, claims to have tutored numerous students with state rankings. Enrolment in three HSC courses there next year would cost $12,500.
Australian Tutoring Association chief executive Mohan Dhall said a lack of regulation means there is little oversight, external validation or accountability for the colleges.
“The claims on the centres’ websites will tend to be self-serving, and they appear to use students’ results to drive financial returns,” he said. “There is no evidence top students would not have achieved the same marks without coaching.
“It is a global issue, and there’s a huge policy gap for public education regarding the growth of coaching.”
Students across school sectors enrol in coaching courses for the HSC, including pupils enrolled in high-fee private schools.
One former public selective school teacher said it “can be a constant challenge to hold the same authority as the coaching centres because parents pay for tutoring”.
“It can have quite a serious impact in the school classroom,” she said, also speaking anonymously. “Students can focus on coaching work in class instead of their schoolwork. Teachers can then be seen as a second-rate provider.”
Dhall said the colleges had no obligations to publish enrolment numbers or disclose staff qualifications, and they often target and recruit former students as tutors. “Many high-achieving students start with very high marks, so we don’t know if coaching has added value.”
But he said there was a significant difference between intensive coaching courses and private tutoring tailored to students’ specific needs. “Evidence shows tutoring can be effective and beneficial for remedial support, if students have gaps in their learning or if they have fallen behind.”
One public high school teacher said many students seek maths tutoring in primary school to learn fundamental concepts, such as multiplication and division because they have not mastered them at school. “It’s a bit of an elephant in the room – we need to get serious about prioritising maths teaching from primary years,” they said.
North Sydney Boys 2024 graduate Bowen Wu said an “overwhelming majority” of students opt for maths and science coaching as opposed to the humanities “because of the way tutoring works”.
“There’s a very formulaic way of doing it,” he said, adding that students can feel pressured to do tutoring as “there are other people learning one year ahead”.
“People do tutoring for the benefit of having longer to think over the content, so it doesn’t feel as rushed, and so that when you’re in school, you’re already in this revision process,” Wu said. “Tutoring gives challenging questions that are probably sometimes outside the syllabus.
HSC coaching colleges are offering courses that teach content weeks ahead of when students learn it in the school classroom.Credit: iStock
“But if you are a student who really wants to succeed, tutoring really isn’t the only way you can do that.”
Dhall is concerned that the shadow industry has intensified inequalities in education, “devaluing the fabric of selective public schools” and ramping up competition for selective streams. Some colleges allocate double the NESA recommended hours for the course.
A NSW Education Department spokesperson said it does not have oversight of tutoring or coaching colleges as that was a matter for NSW Fair Trading.
“Students don’t need to be tutored to succeed at school,” the spokesperson said. “The HSC results received by our public school students reflect the great work of their teachers in supporting students to achieve their best.”
The department said a survey of parents in 2023 whose child was offered a selective placement found only 20 per cent indicated their children had attended coaching classes.
Experts have previously urged the government to publish a richer set of HSC data that reflects a fuller range of student achievement, including schools’ median ATARs, school improvement and post-school destinations.
The NSW government releases information only about students who achieve the top band in their HSC subject. Most attend selective public schools and private schools.
The Education Department holds value-add data – the estimated contribution a school makes to student learning – but it is not available to parents or the public.
The coaching colleges approached by the Herald did not respond to requests for comment.
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