My Private Education Lessons – What I Learnt
It seems to be a growing trend now to find a private tutor to guide you through your studies and I am one of the growing number of people who has paid an individual for academic help. Having had a private education, I had private tuition on tap from my masters but upon leaving school I entered a different atmosphere at university. At this moment in your life your degree result can have a huge bearing on your first job and being on the 2:2/2:1 boundary every pound spent could give me a £1000 return in my future earning opportunities . In the run up to exams I asked the individual coming top in our year to give me some one on one lessons as a tutor. I paid £100 for a day , which was pretty good value for such an academic but then that is what he was, an academic not a trainer . The tutor gave it a good shot and it may have helped but I missed the 2:1. I shall never know the effect but apart from anything it gave me huge confidence.
In addition to the black and white of the whole experience, it welled a strange nostalgia for a by-gone time from sitting in the gardens of the V & A with the Venetian architecture surrounding the baking lawns and squared hedges. A satisfaction from educating oneself purely for the sake of furthering knowledge whilst having a cup of tea with no other commitments other than to become an expert of classical or quantum mechanics. Taking a small moment in-between the working of an equation to sit, think, enjoy a slight second of a breeze in the stillness and see the ink dry on to the page. There were children paddling in the pool and chasing each other through the tables. Just for a point in time I could have been at a big family party in Venice in the 1800’s. It was an enjoyment from a colonial setting with the one to one learning that was once commonplace to the children of the .
An additional satisfaction came from settling the bill , although this may sound paradoxical, it was great to know that I had spent my money not on material items but on knowledge pure and simple, I was £100 lighter but my mind was enriched.
So, is it surprising that the private tuition industry is growing? No. It has become widely accepted that education is the way to better oneself and ascend the social structure. In Hong-Kong private tutors can receive up to £1000 per hour as the competition and the status is raised and academic success has become the measure of a person’s wealth. It’s no longer cool to be poor at school.
