Better oversight of HSC top achievers’ private coaching needed

When the Herald published its list of top HSC schools last month, North Sydney Boys was first, followed by James Ruse Agricultural High: two selective public schools that have cemented their place as HSC champs.

These results are rightly celebrated by these schools. But, as education editor Lucy Carroll writes today, what is not shown in the rankings is where else students sought instruction.

Sydney’s estimated multimillion-dollar private tutoring industry is continuing to grow but a lack of regulation means its impact on the education system is difficult to assess.

The coaching industry is not only changing the classroom experience for the children taking part. In today’s story, one selective public school teacher estimated 80 per cent of students at their school received private coaching.

Doctor Du Education, a private coaching college at Burwood and Hurstville, claims it tutored about 330 of the students with top band result in mathematics extension 2 last year. Coaching in four-unit mathematics, physics and chemistry for one child costs almost $15,000 for three terms – double systemic Catholic school fees.

Coaching colleges boast about teaching topics months in advance. Other students in the classroom can be left learning content already mastered by coached peers. It is no surprise that families – particularly in the selective school system – are choosing to enrol in coaching.

Beyond asking whether coaching gives children an unfair advantage – the answer falling somewhere between yes (but so do many other factors) and no (because students completing double the classes are already academically inclined) – the school system, too, must reflect on its failings.

Is the pressure of the HSC as an entry point to tertiary education too great? Coaching colleges focus on subjects known to “scale well” – higher level mathematics and sciences – for higher ATARs and market themselves based on the number of 99-plus ATARs their alumni receive. It is perhaps telling that the pursuit of excellence in other subjects – PDHPE, say, or modern history – has not generated such an industry.

There is also, as Australian Tutoring Association chief executive Mohan Dhall notes, evidence that tutoring can be beneficial for remedial support for students. If children are not learning well in the classroom, tutoring may help.

But if the only way to learn well is to be coached outside school hours like your peers, tutoring in some schools – particularly those which celebrate their HSC results each year – appears to be less a remedial and more a structural component of education.

Dhall is right to call for better regulation of the industry. The total number of students, and how much families are paying, is unknown. The NSW Education Department believes coaching colleges are the regulatory responsibility of Fair Trading, but teachers who spoke in today’s story say they are having a pervasive and serious impact on education in our state’s schools.

The state cannot turn a blind eye. Greater oversight is needed.

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