Market for Tutors Project

Private tutoring offers a readily available means for addressing two issues in Pakistan. First, nationally-representative data shows that a large share of Pakistani children receive paid, private tutoring across the socio-economic spectrum, meaning the market for private tutors can be leveraged to address the critically low learning outcomes in Pakistan at scale. Second, the vast majority of private tutors are women with secondary degrees, providing a culturally-acceptable means of employment for a critically under-employed population. However, despite the wide-spread popularity of tutoring, we know virtually nothing about how markets for private tutoring operate. “Market for Tutors” project addresses this knowledge-gap by building on a survey of 21 private markets for tutors (15,000 households) we conducted in 2019. We are currently conducting follow-up surveys in these markets to better understand both the current state of the market and how the markets changed due to the disruption in education brought on by Covid-19. The lessons learned from these surveys will be used to inform interventions aimed at expanding the tutor market and improving its efficacy.