The Legislative Assembly passed a government-initiated bill regulating local private tutorial centres in its second and final reading yesterday afternoon, the outline of which was passed by a plenary session last year.
Private tutorial centres are officially known as private supplementary education support centres.
The new law, which will take legal effect a certain period after its promulgation in the Official Gazette (BO), states that entities that provide tutorial services to more than five students at the same time must register and be licensed to become private tutorial centres, and they can only operate in commercial buildings, while teaching support services by schools and home-based teaching support activities are not regulated by the law.
According to Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture Elsie Ao Ieong U, home-based teaching support activities are those organised by parents, involving no more than four students, and the students participating in the tutorial activities should all live in the same home. Ao Ieong added that such home-based activities should not be run as a business.
The law also aims to raise the academic standards for those working in private tutorial centres, with the “coordinators” responsible for managing education centres having to have at least a higher specialist degree or an associate degree, while coordinators working in centres that provide after-school care for students in early childhood or primary education only must have at least a high-school diploma.
Learning support staff, according to the law, who provide teaching support services to students, must have at least a high-school diploma to teach students from early childhood to junior secondary education level, while those providing teaching support services to students at senior secondary education level must have at least a higher specialist degree or an associate degree.
The law allows people with a criminal record which has been cleared for them to work in private tutorial centres, except for those with drug or sexual assault convictions, while those who committed a premeditated crime will not be allowed to work in private tutorial centres either.
The law is slated to come into force on May 1 next year.
Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture Elsie Ao Ieong U addresses yesterday’s plenary session in the legislature’s hemicycle during the legislature’s second and final reading of a bill regulating local private tutorial centres.
