Normalizing private tuition in Myanmar : implications of embodied dispositions and forms of capital

Abstract

Private tuition, called kyushin (ကျူရှင်) in Burmese, is a common outside-school-hours academic activity in Myanmar. The enactment of a private academic training law in 1984 indicated that the phenomenon had been prevalent for over three decades. Students and parents generally seek private tuition for examination preparations. Across the world, the demand is high in grades that have high-stakes examinations. In Myanmar, the proportion of receivers is especially high in Grade 11 in which students need to sit the matriculation examination for higher education admission at the end of the year. However, few studies have explored the private tuition’s features, demand and determinant factors, and implications in Grade 11. This study employed mixed methods– i.e., individual semi-structured interviews and in-person survey questionnaires – to explore the complex nature of private tuition in upper Myanmar. A pilot study was conducted in Kale Township, Sagaing Region, and the main study was in Mandalay Region and Chin State, chosen because of their matriculation examination pass rates and stages of economic development. Townships and schools were then selected with maximum variation criteria which included the matriculation examination pass rates, economic development, and geographical distances. From each school, students from different subject streams were surveyed. Then, from the surveyed population, students of different private tuition providers and non-receivers were interviewed. Questionnaires were distributed to all high school teachers in the sampled schools, and an average of two teachers per school was interviewed. Interviewees for parent and tutoring providers were recruited with a convenient sampling approach. In total, the study collected survey responses of 1,366 Grade 11 students and 97 high school teachers from 17 high schools. The interviewees included 110 Grade 11 students, 34 high school teachers, 30 parents, 29 private tuition providers, and two former private tutors and private school principals at the time of the study. Survey data were processed with SPSS. The interview data were transcribed into the interviewed languages and then analyzed manually. Private tuition is a complex phenomenon. This study categorized private tuition into two main groups: lecture-style tutoring and supervision-style tutoring (guide). The study then presented eight common providing patterns based on their teaching styles, class-size, tutor arrangement, tutoring place, and ways of fee-charging. The study observed that private tuition has occupied a major space in teaching, learning, schooling, and participants’ thinking. The observed data indicated that 78.5% of the surveyed students received private tuition for Grade 11, and nearly half (47.2%) of the students said they would attend only private tuition classes if they were given a choice. The financial challenge was the most common reason (50%) for not receiving private tuition, and unwillingness to receive tutoring represented only 19% of the surveyed students. From the 205 interviewees, only three Grade 11 students and one parent showed the dislike of private tuition over school classes. The participants’ demand for private tuition was closely related to their embodied dispositions which can be themed as rites of schooling and disciplining discourse of development. However, a student’s possibility of receiving private tuition was determined by his/her possessed different forms of capital. The study then discussed the implications of (not) receiving private tuition on participants' perception of learning, teaching, and schooling. The study argued that the phenomenon is evolving into a social norm which conceals the reproduction of educational and social inequalities of private tuition, and education in general, as an essential practice for academic and social pathways.