School Choice by Default? Understanding the Growing Demand for Private Tutoring in Canada. NALL Working Paper.

This paper describes a study that examined the demand for tutoring within a context of heightened credential competition and a growing private-education sector consisting of private schools, charter schools, homeschoolers, and a burgeoning entrepreneurial education industry. The number of private-tutoring businesses is rapidly growing in Canada, even though the Canadian educational system lacks the characteristics that normally fuel the demand for such businesses. Which kinds of parents hire and desire private tutors, and how is the demand linked to other educational preferences? Using data from a national survey, the study found that parents who desire affordable tutoring do not differ greatly from other parents in their demographic or political ideology. However, tutoring parents are less satisfied with public education, are more involved in their children's schools, and are greatly more desiring of private schooling and other educational alternatives. The paper concludes that for many parents, private tutoring represents a school choice by default, and is an affordable educational option in lieu of the ability to pay for private schools. (Contains 16 references.) (Author)