Different subjects, different incentives: Private tutoring and perceived instructional quality in Czech lower-secondary schools

Abstract

Whether education systems can stimulate or attenuate the demand for private supplementary tutoring by acting on the quality of provided school instruction is a complex and relatively unexplored issue. This study aims to reduce this knowledge gap by analysing the relationships between private tutoring attendance and instructional quality perceived at individual and classroom levels. Regression analyses are performed on a representative sample of 1280 pupils in the senior grade of lower secondary Czech schools. In mathematics and national language, students who find the school instruction interesting, who learn a lot, whose teachers can motivate them and explain the subject well, are less likely to use private tutoring in this subject. By increasing the quality of teaching in these subjects, schools and teachers may indirectly reduce the demand for private tutoring. However, perceived quality of school instruction in English language does not affect English tutoring, which is procured by affluent families irrespective of the perceived quality of school instructions.