# **7.2. A (tentative) agenda for policy toward private tutoring**

Based on these results and the casual (but intuitive) observations about the association between corruption and government policies above, some tentative policy recommendations can be proposed. First, since private tutoring is a widespread and growing phenomenon, we believe that it is time that governments devote more attention to this issue. The benign-neglect policy of type II governments in Table 4 runs the risk of letting tutoring-related corruption go unchecked, in the case of the countries with low control-of-corruption scores. Even the other countries in this group may be missing opportunities to use tutoring as an instrument of education policy, as a flexible sector that can help address imbalances between supply and demand for education. Government actions can range from monitoring (e.g., collecting data on private tutoring attendance, private tutoring businesses) to taking steps to ensure that private tutoring can operate free of corruption and unnecessary barriers to competition.

Similarly, more research needs to be done on private tutoring. We still do not have much empirical evidence on the macro-level determinants of private tutoring. In particular, more crosscountry data needs to be collected to allow researchers to tease out the impacts of government policies and interventions (e.g. educational subsidies, public expenditure on education, high-stakes testing system) on creating the demand for private tutoring. On a micro level, more research should be done on the household decision to send children to school (e.g. household choice of private education versus public education versus public education with private tutoring; household choice between investing in the quantity and the “quality” of children), as well as the short-term and longterm impacts of private tutoring on students’ well-being (e.g. student satisfaction levels, health status, labor-market outcomes).

Second, while it may be welfare-enhancing to ban private tutoring when all tutoring is provided by corrupt teachers, as in the analysis above, a total ban is very difficult to implement in practice. The experience we have from type I governments in Table 4 shows that this approach has not been effective.<sup>33</sup> Thus, it is perhaps better that resources be focused on monitoring and regulating—rather than eradicating—private tutoring. Regulatory approaches can focus on reducing opportunities for corruption by prohibiting public-school teachers from tutoring their own students.

Third, the private-tutoring markets in countries (territories) with low corruption are likely to be more competitive. In such circumstances, our analysis suggests that private tutoring is likely to be welfare-enhancing. Governments may even want to encourage the growth of the private tutoring industry, as Singapore, South Africa, and Zanzibar (Tanzania) have done, for example by training tutors. In such cases, policymakers should monitor the development of the industry and should address concerns about it using the appropriate instruments—which, as suggested earlier, may mean going to the root of the problem rather than holding the private tutoring sector responsible. Most 22