Supplementary Education: Global Growth, Japan's Experience, Canada's Future

Overview & Synopsis

Supplementary education is on the rise globally, taking many different forms, from private tutors to small schools and large corporations. These providers exist outside conventional public and private school systems, offering remedial education and tutoring, parallel instruction to conventional schools, and accelerated or more advanced instruction. Despite their global growth, very little is known about what is being taught in supplementary education institutions, how students and parents select them, or what role they play in education systems. With support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Council, the author sets out to examine Japanese supplementary education. He has visited 25 supplementary education institutions ("juku") in Japan, where he held long discussions with the schools' operators and observed classes. In this article, the author discusses supplementary education and what role such education plays in Canada and--perhaps more importantly--whether it might gain prevalence in the future, following the Japanese path. (Contains 7 notes.)