It is quite tragic that most parents and even students think that the PSLE is the most important exam in Singapore, to the point that parents are willing to spend a lot on tuition for their 12-year old kids but not for their 17-18 year olds, who they believe can understand everything they study on their own. This is quite far from the truth. JC students still need good teachers, failing which they will need good tutors.
Doing badly at the A-levels has quite financially serious consequences. Let’s do the math. Let’s say a student is weak in three H2 subjects and goes for private tuition from March of his 1st year to November of his 2nd year. That is a total of 21 months. At roughly $320 per subject per month, his parents would have to fork out a total of $320 x 3 x 21 = $20 160. So we can say on average JC tuition costs around 20K. But if he doesn’t go for tuition and end up being rejected for his desired courses by all our local recognised universities, his parents may have to fork out around 300K-500K for an overseas degree! That is about 15 to 25 times more costly than spending on JC tuition.
My advice to parents is, if your child is struggling with his JC subjects, you NEED to find him good tutors. If you want to save 20K now you may have to lose 400K later.
