Online local services marketplace Bidvine has found a 118% increase in the number of parents looking for tutors for their children since this time last year, with recent changes to marking criteria being one of the reasons for the increase.
Bidvine.com used their internal data to compare the volume of requests made for tutors year on year and discovered that demands had more than doubled during that time. In a bid to find out what could have caused this increase Bidvine turned to it 2,000 registered tutors for their thoughts on the 118% increase.
Tutors alluded to the fact that recent changes to the marking structure of primary school papers have fuelled the increase after children missed out on some points as their punctuation marks were misshapen. Another reason highlighted by these tutors could also be a result of the new GCSE number marking model, which came into effect this year.
More than half of the tutors questioned (52%) said that the main reason why parents were seeking their expertise was that they thought that their children weren’t getting the right level of education. Two-thirds of tutors specified that they were currently tutoring state educated children and that even if children were hitting targets that parents were still hiring tutors to get them ahead academically.
Russ Morgan, Co-founder of Bidvine.com commented on the data saying:
“An increase of nearly 120% is extremely rare, which is why we asked our registered tutors on the Bidvine platform to give us some insight. It began to make more sense when they explained the recent changes to marking criteria, which seems to have worried a lot of parents.
“There’s been lots of talk about the changes to GCSE marking criteria from the traditional lettered system to a numbered one, and it’s interesting to see how that has impacted demand for tutoring – parents obviously feel anxious about it.
“We think it’s important for parents to have the resources necessary to help their children get the best results they can, and hopefully our tutors will be able to help.”
