Tuition in Singapore, Explained: Who Gets Rich, Who Pays

Singapore families spend 1.8 billion dollars a year on tuition.

That's about 425 million plates of chicken rice. Roughly five million dollars, every single day. See this meter? It's counting. Live. From the moment you pressed play.

So where does all that money go? Why do we keep paying it? And does it even work? I went down a rabbit hole. Parliamentary replies, agency rate cards, fee tables, and way too much chicken rice maths.

So, I made an evidence board. Five questions. Let's go.

Question one. How big is this thing, really? The government's household survey says: in 2023, the average household spent $104.80 a month on private tuition. That's averaged over every household. Even the ones with no kids.

Twenty years earlier, it was $54.70. Then 62. Then 79. Then 88. Then 104. Up. Up. Up.

But here's the twist. As a share of everything families spend, tuition has barely moved. 1.44% then. 1.47% now. So we didn't suddenly go crazy. We got richer, and the tuition bill grew right along with us.

So how many kids actually take tuition? I went looking. MOE has told Parliament it doesn't track the total value of the tuition industry. And this year, asked how many Primary 3 to 6 kids take tuition, subject by subject, it said it doesn't track that either. So the best number we have comes from a household survey.

What we do have is a brand-new survey. The Institute of Policy Studies asked 1,500 primary school parents. Nine in ten said kids spend too much time on tuition and enrichment. Seven in ten said they would spend more, if they could. Same survey.

And before we feel too special. South Korea spent 29.2 trillion won on private education in 2024. Eight in ten students. In Seoul, cram schools have to close at 10pm. And last December, a councillor proposed pushing that to midnight.

In Hong Kong, star tutors went even bigger. Giant roadside billboards, like pop stars. Tutor kings, the press called them.

Question two. Follow the money. Who actually gets paid?

First stop: the mall. Tuition centres love shopping malls. Bukit Timah. Tampines. Jurong East. Marine Parade. Usually not the ground floor with the bubble tea. Further up. One property report described a Bukit Timah mall as mostly maid agencies, some eateries, hair salons, and tuition centres.

Then there's the price ladder. One big agency's 2026 rate card, per hour, for a Primary 5 or 6 kid. A part-time tutor: 30 to 40 dollars. A full-time tutor: 40 to 55. A trained school teacher: 75 to 90. And some premium tutors from top universities? Over 200 dollars an hour.

My favourite part? The same agency humbly suggests you expect the mid to high end of its own table.

Group classes have their own ladder. Kumon publishes $170 a month per subject. The Learning Lab publishes about $634 a month per subject for Primary 5, for four lessons. That's 150 plates of chicken rice. Per subject. Per month.

That chain has been owned since 2014 by a US private equity firm, Advent International. In 2021, Bloomberg reported it wanted at least 500 million US dollars for the business. Private equity money. In Primary 5 maths.

At the very top: the super tutors. In 2016, CNBC profiled an A-level economics tutor whose one-man business brought in more than a million dollars a year. Some parents offered up to 25,000 dollars just to guarantee their child a seat. He said no.

Last year, he told Bloomberg he earns about 800,000 a year. His verdict on his own industry? It's a free-for-all. Everybody knows it's good money.

So who checks? Centres with ten or more students must register with MOE. Freelance home tutors? No registration at all. One agency alone advertises over 50,000 tutors. Nobody's counting.

Question three. Why do we keep paying? The government's position is pretty clear. MOE has told Parliament that excessive tuition can diminish students' joy of learning.

And then this happened. MOE removed mid-year exams, to take the pressure off. So some tuition centres started selling mock mid-year exams. Up to 130 dollars. Hundreds signed up. The education minister admitted it himself this June.

Why? In that IPS survey, 85% of parents agreed tuition gives their child an advantage at the PSLE. And about half said they feel pressure because other parents are doing it.

There's a word for this. Kiasu. Hokkien for afraid to lose. Even the Prime Minister described it. Parents tell him they wish they could cut back on the endless tuition. Yet everyone hesitates, he said. What if my child loses out?

Picture a stadium. One person stands up to see better. So the person behind them stands up. Then the row behind. Soon, everyone is standing. Nobody can see any better. And everyone's legs hurt.

That's the tuition arms race. Few people want to be in it. But nobody wants to be the first to sit down.

So why not just ban it? Korea tried, in 1980. Its constitutional court struck the ban down in 2000. China banned for-profit tutoring in core subjects in 2021. A year later, its education ministry said as many as 3,000 firms were teaching illegally. Underground tuition.

MOE's own conclusion? Regulating tuition is unlikely to be effective, if the reasons parents buy it don't change.

Question four. In fairness: does tuition actually work? The honest answer from the research is: it depends what kind.

A big UK review finds tutoring can add up to four or five months of progress. But only when it's high quality, targeted, and linked to what's taught in class. And the field's best-known researcher literally titled a paper: why the research is inconclusive.

And plenty of tutors fill real gaps. One centre founder told CNA half or more of her students were failing or barely passing, many turned away elsewhere. A student wrote to The Straits Times that tuition took them from borderline passes to As. Then asked: is it a need, or a nice-to-have?

But there is a cost. Bloomberg met a teenager who gave herself three minutes to eat between back-to-back tuition classes. And MOE's own survey found Primary 5 and Secondary 3 students sleep about seven hours on school nights. The guideline? At least nine up to age 13. Eight for teens.

And then there's who can pay. The richest fifth of households spend $162.60 a month on tuition. The poorest fifth: $36.30. More than four times. In chicken rice, that's 38 plates a month, versus nine.

If cost is the problem, there's help a lot of parents never hear about. CDAC's tuition programme has been free since 2024 for eligible families. SINDA, Mendaki and the Eurasian Association run tuition too. And schools run learning support for kids who need a boost. Ask your school first.

Question five. So what do we actually do? Here's what the evidence says.

One. Ask your kid first. What exactly is the gap? A topic? A language? Confidence? Two. If you do buy tuition, buy small, short and targeted, tied to what the class is doing. Not endless hours.

Three. Look at the whole week, not just the grades. Tuition, CCA, enrichment, homework, and sleep. Four. Try a lesson before you commit, and ask other parents, not the centre's own reviews. And five. Know when to stop.

Because here's the thing. Tuition is a tool. It's not love. Your kid probably won't remember the worksheets. They'll remember who drove them there, and what you talked about on the way home.

And when the family calendar starts looking like Tetris, tuition, CCA, enrichment, all clashing, share it to Aunty on myna. She puts it all on the shared family calendar and says the reminders out loud. So you get to do the encouraging. Not the nagging.

Oh, and the meter? Since you pressed play, Singapore families have spent over thirty-five thousand dollars on tuition. That's more than eight thousand plates of chicken rice. Save this for the next family chat. And subscribe. Next up: why the world copied Singapore Math.