Private Supplementary Tutoring at a Transition Point in Kazakhstan's Education System: Its Scale, Nature, and Policy Implications

This quantitative study examined the scale, nature and effectiveness of private supplementary tutoring (PT) at one of the transition points in Kazakhstan’s education system during the COVID-19 pandemic. The data were collected from 366 secondary school students. The findings show that 73.8% of participants received PT, mainly to help them prepare for the university entrance examination. Seventy-four percent of fathers and 83% of mothers were holders of university degrees and they had the economic means to invest in more and better PT for their children. Thus, PT has the potential to be a force for reducing equity, and so effective policies to regulate PT should be adopted.