Presidential Invited Session: Shadow Education in Asia: Complexities and Dynamics in Access and Equity

Group Submission Type: Presidential Invited Sessions

Proposal

Within the overall conference theme of ‘Improving education for a more equitable world’, this panel considers the natures and roles of the so-called shadow education provision of private supplementary tutoring. The metaphor of the shadow, now increasingly familiar albeit with recognition of limitations, is broadly employed on the grounds that private supplementary tutoring mimics the content of schooling. The panel focuses on the primary and secondary levels, defining tutoring to include one-to-one, small groups and large classes both online and in-person.

Geographically, the panel focuses on Asia but also with reference to other parts of the world. Within Asia it considers South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia; and within those regions it considers national, subnational and institutional variations. The panel thus makes multiple comparisons across and between geographic levels. It also considers population subgroups, including race, gender and socio-economic status.

The links between shadow provision and improvement of education are complex. Most tutoring suppliers would assert that they improve the overall provision of education, in particular by compensating for shortcomings in school systems. These shortcomings might arise from class sizes in schools that obstruct individual attention to students, and from bureaucratic constraints in schools that limit innovation. Suppliers of shadow education may point also to talented tutors able to attract and inspire students even in tutorial classes that are larger than those of schools. Yet the shadow sector may subtract as well as supplement. Serving teachers who provide extra tutoring may devote more effort to these private activities in which revenue hinges on performance than to their regular duties in which income is received largely regardless of performance. Further, students may respect their tutors, to whom they are paying money and over whom they have choice, more than their teachers over whom they have no choice; and dimensions of the shadow curriculum may conflict with those of schooling in both content and timing.

Similarly, the links between shadow education and equity may be complex. At first sight, shadow education may seem always to undermine equity, since prosperous families can clearly afford more and better private tutoring than lower-income counterparts. This observation is certainly valid, especially if tutoring spaces are also where students are taught the hidden curriculum needed to gain membership in exclusive social circles including through access to foreign universities. However some tutoring does allow otherwise-disadvantaged students to keep up with their peers and to excel. Moreover, some tutors make active adjustments for students of different income levels when setting the fees.

The panel comes during an era that has been altered by the Covid-19 pandemic. Schools worldwide have been closed for various durations by the pandemic, and shadow education has helped to bridge gaps. In most settings this bridging has simply been an entrepreneurial response to a market opportunity, but some governments have entered partnerships with tutoring providers to help children catch up in the context of lost learning. School closures have also accelerated online learning. In many settings the tutoring industry was ahead of schools in this domain before the pandemic, and the gap widened because entrepreneurs had market incentives to retain their incomes in the face of prohibited in-person tutoring. Again a complementary factor was that private tutors were relatively unfettered by the traditions of schooling.

At the same time, mention of technology brings attention to another domain in which shadow education (and other) providers can reduce at least geographic gaps. Thus entrepreneurs seeking further clients can now reach across rural/urban divides in a way that was not previously possible. This technology does require access to the internet, but in some settings private tutoring is provided through mobile phones rather than computers and thus can have a very broad reach.

These remarks all fit with global shifts in the role of the state and increased acknowledgment of roles for non-state actors in education sectors, which is the theme for UNESCO’s 2021/2 Global Education Monitoring Report. The vision statement for the 2023 CIES conference recalls the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which strongly asserted state leadership and provision of education. In this context, ecosystems for schooling basically comprised schools, teachers, families and students under the direction of the state. The rise of private tutoring has brought entrepreneurs into the ecosystems, most obviously in the form of companies operating tutorial centers and online provision but also through self-employed tutors in the informal sector. Yet these ecosystems have evolved in different ways, depending partly on the private-sector roles permitted by central governments.

For all these themes, Asia provides a remarkable arena for comparison. The panel notes important contextual features concerning the roles of the state, cultural diversity, economic climates, and more. Japan is well known for its jukus and South Korea for its hagwons, yet shadow education also flourishes in various forms in most other parts of the region. Its historical appearance in India, for example, has been recorded in the 19th century, since which time it has dramatically expanded to the point of becoming a normalized phenomenon in most parts of the country. Government attitudes have spanned the spectrum rigorous attempted control to extreme laissez faire. In 2021, for example, the Chinese government introduced fierce regulations that sought to suppress the shadow sector and maintain the dominance of schooling. The regulations certainly had dramatic impact, though much tutoring went underground. At the other end of the spectrum, the governments of Laos and Indonesia have largely ignored the phenomenon.

Taking such factors into account, the presentations in this panel address the diversity of patterns within some striking commonalities across and beyond the Asian region. Considering the number of students and teachers globally that engage with and rely on shadow education, these presentations stress that considerations of schooling must be complemented by considerations of its shadow. The shadow sector has grown with striking speed during the last three decades, and will remain a permanent phenomenon albeit with changing shapes to fit changing times.

Sub Unit

• General Pool

Chair

• Mark Bray, University of Hong Kong

Individual Presentations

• Evolving Patterns of Shadow Education in Asia: Features, Driving Forces, and Implications - Mark Bray, University of Hong Kong

• Three Models of Governance: Regulating Shadow Education in Japan, India and China - Wei Zhang, East China Normal University

• The Shadow Education System of Reproducing Elite Status in Bangladesh - Nisma Elias, University of Minnesota- Twin Cities

• Why do I risk my professional reputation to do it?” Exploring Vietnamese teachers’ motivations and identities in relation to private tutoring - Hang Bich Duong, Arizona State University

Discussant

• Priyadarshani Joshi, UNESCO