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Choosing

How I'd choose a tuition centre

· Choosing · tuition

Three sharpened yellow pencils, a plain white eraser, an exercise book with a blank grey cover, a wooden ruler with no markings and a blank fee slip on a deep green paper board
Registered first. Results posters last.

I'd choose a tuition centre by reading the wall beside the door, and I don't mean the photographs. I mean one dull certificate, then the stairs, then the person who'd actually be teaching. The wall of smiling A students gets looked at last, if at all.

At the door

The Education Act says every educational institution must be registered, and that a copy of its certificate must be kept on show in a conspicuous part of the premises. Leaving it off the wall can cost the person in charge up to RM5,000.1

So I wouldn't have to ask anything awkward. I'd just read it, because it says more than "registered". A 2014 answer in Parliament said a centre may run only the subjects approved on that certificate, so if the banner promises something the paper has never heard of, that's my first question.

The same answer counted 3,322 registered centres.2 That's old, and I couldn't find a newer count or any public list a parent can search, so the wall may be the best check going.

No certificate at all? I'd ask once, nicely, and leave. The Act lets officials close an unregistered place straight away, and I wouldn't want to be choosing again halfway through a school year.1

On the stairs

This is the part I wouldn't expect a flyer to mention. A 2025 paper on fire safety in tuition centres looks at those in shop offices, and its worry is simple: turn a shop office into classrooms and you ask much more of the same escape routes.

It also gathers older press reports, including one that put almost 40% of the centres in one part of Penang in unsuitable locations and possible fire traps.3 That report is from 2008, so I wouldn't hang much on the figure.3 I'd hang something on the question, though.

I can't audit a building, and nobody expects a parent to. I can count the ways out of a classroom and see whether they're clear of boxes, and since these premises need the fire department's approval, I'd ask when it last came by, mostly to see whether the question surprises anyone.

The walk, in the order I'd do it

The walk, in the order I'd do itSteps in order: Certificate on the wall, then Subject on the certificate, then Ways out of the classroom, then Who teaches, by name, then One lesson from the back.Certificateon the wallSubject onthecertificateWays out oftheclassroomWho teaches,by nameOne lessonfrom thebackThe walk, in the order I'd do itSteps in order: Certificate on the wall, then Subject on the certificate, then Ways out of the classroom, then Who teaches, by name, then One lesson from the back.Certificate on the wallSubject on the certificateWays out of the classroomWho teaches, by nameOne lesson from the back
My own order, not an official checklist.

Who's at the whiteboard

Under the Act, you can't teach at a centre without being a registered teacher or holding a permit. So "our experienced tutors" has a real question behind it, which is whose name is on what.1

That 2014 answer counted 8,373 teachers across all those centres, or about two and a half a centre by my sum.2 With so few, I'd ask plainly who'd teach this child, on which day, and who turns up when that person has a fever.

Some tutors also teach in schools, which isn't a scandal in itself. Sinar Harian's 2025 report shows the rule being read two ways: the minister has said teachers need the ministry's permission for side work, while the teachers' union says telling the head is enough for work related to education.

I don't need to settle that. I'd only ask whether this tutor teaches at this child's school, because then I'd want to know how the two classrooms stay separate.

How big is the class?

There are regulations on classrooms, but I couldn't find a copy I could open, so I don't know whether they cap a class. I'd ask for the number, then ask to sit at the back of one lesson and watch what happens to the quiet kid.

The wall of As

I've got nothing against the photographs. What a poster can't show is how many sat the paper, how many were already strong when they walked in, and how long any of them stayed.

The Act does make a false or misleading statement in promoting a centre an offence, with a fine of up to RM50,000 or up to five years' jail.1 But a true photo of an A student isn't false. It's just chosen.

So I'd swap the poster for one question: of everyone who sat SPM with you, how many beat their school's trial results? A centre that can answer has earned my attention. A centre that can't is normal, and I'd simply stop treating its wall as evidence.

And a fair fee?

I couldn't find one. I looked for a survey of centre fees and found nothing I'd trust.

The nearest thing is a 2024 letter in FMT that assumes RM100 a subject a month, so four subjects come to RM400. That's one writer's working assumption rather than a price list, but it gives a quote something to stand beside.

The same letter puts the average at about six hours of extra classes a week.5 That's the cost I'd weigh harder than the ringgit.

where I looked

  1. Dong Zong, Education Act 1996 (Act 550), trilingual edition, second edition, June 2024 dongzong.my
  2. Dewan Rakyat, oral question 19 on private tuition centres, written reply, 2 April 2014 pardocs.sinarproject.org
  3. Environment-Behaviour Proceedings Journal, Lessons Learned in Compliance to the Fire Safety Regulation of Tuition Centres, Mustafa and others, 2025 ebpj.e-iph.co.uk
  4. Sinar Harian, Guru buat kerja sambilan pendidikan disaran maklum ketua jabatan, 2025 sinarharian.com.my
  5. Free Malaysia Today, letter, Private tuition's proliferation a symptom of our waning education system, 2024 freemalaysiatoday.com