Voluntary Restriction or Freedom to Flourish? Self-Regulation of Commercial Tutoring Providers for Managing Shadow Education

Private tutoring, also called private supplementary education or shadow education, has experienced rapid growth in the past two decades. As the phenomenon has expanded globally, so too has the academic literature calling for understanding and effective governance of the sector. Concerns about the deleterious effects of private supplementary tutoring on mainstream education and on wider society have led to calls for regulatory responses by governments at different levels. Such responses could address, among other things, corruption, amplified social stratification, consumer protection, and employee protection. Most governments take a hands-off approach, leaving the industry largely unencumbered by particularised regulations. Between a laissez-faire approach and government regulation lies self-regulation, perhaps government-supported. The self-regulation of tutoring markets, featuring peak representative bodies, may bring accountability through the articulation of codes of practice and standards of conduct. In this international study, varying approaches to self-regulation are explored. Drawing on both the academic and grey literature, this paper assesses approaches by nine self-regulating tutoring bodies in seven countries. The study stresses the place of ‘self-regulation’ as a policy option for consideration in the literature on shadow education.