Throwing Light on Shadow Education. Editorial.

Abstract

This special issue is concerned with the growing global phenomenon of supplementary tutoring, which takes distinct forms in different societies and sometimes even transcends national boundaries . As the title of this issue we chose a metaphor well known in the field − shadow education − to highlight how private tutoring often shadows or mimics the operation of the formal school system (see the origin of the term in Marimuthu et al ., 1991; Stevenson & Baker, 1992; Bray, 1999), we do however recognise that sometimes the content it covers, its aims and purposes, may not coincide with those of formal education. The belief that schools alone − and formal education in general − cannot fulfil all of a student’s learning needs, creates the demand for tutoring worldwide . Much of student learning takes place outside of traditional schools, some may be of an academic orientation, while other times it may focus on non-academic activities or offer a hybrid model .