Maths tutors are in strong demand as students and their parents grapple with plunging achievement rates. Photo / Getty Images
Maths tutors are in strong demand as students and their parents grapple with plunging achievement rates. Photo / Getty Images
New Zealand's plunging maths achievement has sparked a surge of enrolments in after-school maths tuition classes.
Sarah Simons of NumberWorks'nWords said the phones in her centres "have been ringing non stop" after the Herald reported this week that the Ministry of Education has called in a Royal Society expert panel to advise on how to turn around declining maths scores in national and international surveys.
"We've found that the combination of school and additional tuition is optimal for setting the next generation up for success," she said.
"Overseas this is the norm, and we're seeing it increasingly recognised and adopted by NZ families."
But one parent with a child in an Auckland primary school told the Herald that more than half of his child's classmates attend the Japanese tuition company Kumon.
"If you have the money, kids go to Kumon or Numberworks etc two or three times a week. It's like a form of wealth separation, as only the wealthier families can afford it. They all do it but seldom talk about it," he said.
"The others just languish in the school system and remain at the bottom of the class."
A West Auckland mother, who did not want to be named said she sent her daughter, who is now 8, to NumberWorks'nWords last year because she was "really struggling in maths" even though she was bright enough to have jumped a year ahead of her age group.
"She didn't know the basic facts and she told me that she was at the back and there was no interaction [with the teacher]," the mother said.
"Quite a few other parents said the same thing - that the kids are falling through the cracks."
She said her daughter jumped ahead on a computerised tuition programme at NumberWorks'nWords, with support from a tutor who looked after a small group at a time.
"We've seen a good jump in her levels at maths," she said. "I'm going to keep doing it as long as I can because it's going to get harder. High school is not easy."
However, Auckland Primary Principals' Association president Stephen Lethbridge said he advised parents at his Pt Chevalier School not to go to the tuition companies.
Stephen Lethbridge advises parents to talk to their children's school rather than going to after-school tuition companies. Photo / Michael Craig
"We take an approach that if children need some extra support, we can do it at school, and we talk with parents around how they can help at home," he said.
He said extra tuition could help - but at a cost.
"As with anything, focused attention on a certain area would always bring some impact, so a child that is going and doing extra things will always see an improvement," he said.
"But we have to be careful that the kids are not in these after-school classes for sustained long periods of time. Kids need to be kids. Sometimes doing some extra things can have a negative impact on your enjoyment of maths."
Steven Hargreaves says every maths teacher at Macleans College provides extra help to students who need it outside class time. Photo / Dean Purcell
Macleans College principal Steven Hargreaves, who chairs Auckland's secondary principals' association, said he also advised families to talk to their school maths teachers, who were willing to help students before or after school.
"Every maths teacher in the school provides that out-of-class support at some point during the year," he said.
But he said a number of Macleans students do pay for extra tuition and one local maths tutor regularly parks his car advertising his service outside the school gates.
