Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Let talk about tuition fee in Malaysia

Tuitionmall.com have been operate about 9 months since it launched in this March, and during this period, I was gather a lot of thought about "Tuition" in Malaysia, and I decided to setup a blog page in this website and sharing those ideas to all of you.
Before I start to sharing anything, I would like to apologist if there is any grammar or typo error in the articles, this is because I am from a Chinese education background and english is not my frist language, I am welcome any comment and correction if you feel there is something not correct in my articles.
In the daily operation on this business, I have been dealing with a lot of parents and tutors, and the more frequent question the parents or students will ask is about the tuition fee.
Is there any standard rate for a home tuition? My answer will be "YES" ( as per the table below).
Non- Graduates / UndergradsGraduates (Part-Time Tutors)Full-Time Graduate TutorsEx-School TeachersCurrent School Teachers
Standard 1 to 3MYR 20MYR 20MYR 25MYR 30MYR 30
Standard 4 to 6MYR 25MYR 25MYR 30MYR 35MYR 35
Secondary Lower MYR 30MYR 30MYR 35MYR 40MYR 35
Secondary Upper MYR 35MYR 35MYR 40MYR 45MYR 50
Pre U / Form 6MYR 40MYR 40MYR 45MYR 50MYR 60

refer url http://www.tuitionmall.com/tuition-rate.php
But this standard rate just can be a reference to parents and the actually rate normally will base on the following criteria:

  1. The location on the student's home
    The rate will be higher in certain areas in city compare to the Kampung area. For example the tuition fee in Damasara is higher compare to the fee in Kajang. Another example is the rate in Kuala Lumpur is higher compare to Ipoh.
  2. The number of year of the tutor experience
    Tutors with more then 5 years experience with charge higher compare to those less experience tutors, normally parents are asking for experience tutors, so the demand of experience high and they can charge higher.
  3. Distance to travel to the student's house
    This is one of the consideration of the tutor when they quote the parents, higher fee is charge in order to cover they petro and travel time.
  4. Number of students in a group
    1 to 1 tuition fee will always higher then 1 to 2 or 1 to many. This is because the time consume for the tutor is same, so they can reduce the fee for second, third or so on students. However, 1 to many are difficult to teach compare to 1 to 1. That why we can�t pay the same rate to 1 to 2 as we pay for 1 to 1.
  5. Special qualification of the tutor
    Sometime, parents are requesting the tutor having some special experience or qualification, for example the tutor has to be a SPM paper marking teacher. Of cause, tutor with this kind if experience will charge higher compare to the standard.
The tuition fee mentioned above are more to the academic subjects which are for students from pre-school to STPM.

Let discuss a little bit about the professional courses like adult English, music, dancing etc. Obviously professional courses charge is much higher compare to academic tuition. As I understand from a few tutors, they normally charge more then RM50.00 per hour, and some of they charge up to RM100 / per hour.

Any how, as a tuition agency, I am open for discussion about the tuition fee between the tutor and the parent, and the important thing is both of the parents and tutors are comfortable with the fee. I am hoping all the tuition jobs that I matched are in long term basis, so this is very important.