In the face of heavy demand for private supplementary tutoring in basic education, the state seems to have adopted a consumerism model in the decentralised governance of mass tutoring, allowing students and parents to select for themselves course information, payment amounts and methods, tutoring dates and times, and physical conditions when buying services from registered cram schools in Hong Kong. In the study reported here, a 3-level cultural analysis of cram schools was conducted from 1998 to 2008 to examine the patterns of mass tuition trends in Hong Kong. The analysis investigated the impacts of such trends, or culture, upon youth values, and implications are drawn for policy making, educational reform, societal movements, and academic recommendations for further research.
面對課餘補習的極大需求，香港特區政府似乎採納以消費主義為本的分權管理模式，讓有需要的學生及家長自行考慮課程內容、收取的費用及收費方法、學習環境、補習日期及時間等條件，去選擇合宜的註冊補習社。通過三個層次的文化分析，本文旨在剖析補習社文化或風氣於1998年至2008年期間對青少年價值觀的影響，從而在管理政策、教育改革、社會運動及學術研究等多層面上提出建議。
[Copyright of Journal of Youth Studies is the property of The Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups at http://yrc.hkfyg.org.hk/]

Private supplementary tutoring has long been a major phenomenon in parts of East Asia, including Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan. In recent times it has grown dramatically in other parts of Asia and in Africa, Europe and North America. The factors underlying the growth of private tutoring vary, but in all settings it has major implications for learning and livelihood. Families with the necessary resources are able to secure not only greater quantities but also better qualities of private tutoring. Children receiving such tutoring are then able to perform better in school, and in the long run to improve their lifetime earnings. By contrast, children of low‐income families who do not receive such benefits may not be able to keep up with their peers and may drop out of school at an earlier age. Tutoring also of course has a direct impact on the livelihoods of the tutors, providing employment and incomes for a range of professionals and amateurs of different age groups. The dynamics of inter‐relationships are complex, and vary from one setting to another. This paper argues that private supplementary tutoring deserves much more attention from policy makers and researchers.
[Copyright of Compare: A Journal of Comparative Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03057920601024974]