Should Shadow Education Stay as a Shadow or Exist as Co-curricula Alongside Mainstream Education?

Abstract

Intense competition and educational privatization have fostered demands for student personalization, leading to shadow education becoming entrenched in the Asian education sector. Its social influence is expanding and far-reaching, which has attracted many scholars to study this issue. Scholars have been arguing about the adverse effects of shadow education on widening the inequality of social problems, increasing students’ psychological pressures, and also the moral conflicts that teachers face. This position paper explores and discusses the rationality of shadow education from three dimensions: social, psychological, and economic. It argues that shadow education should exist as a co-curricular or supplement to formal mainstream education because it serves as a mirror that can reflect the missing parts of formal education, as shadow education can assist lower academic performing students and cater to need-oriented functions under-utilized within mainstream education. This article concludes with some recommendations for education policymakers in the Thailand Ministry of Education (MOE) in Thailand regarding the rising of the shadow education phenomenon. With stronger oversight of shadow education operators, improved communication between mainstream schools and parents, and increased financial support to the public education sector, a dynamic synergy between mainstream schools, shadow education operators, parents and students can be achieved.

Indonesian Students’ Perspectives on Elt in Shadow Education

“…The interview session took time 30 to 60 minutes for each student. The foci of the interview questions were on the following aspects of the participant students' personal experiences during their learning activity: 1) teaching and learning activities (Wei & Guan, 2021), 2) the teaching and learning outcome (Loyalka & Zakharov 2016;Yung & Bray, 2007), 3) teaching and learning media, 4) teacher's teaching performance (Bray, et, al. 2018) 5) language used, and (6) learning challenges.…”

Self-Efficacy of Chinese Language Teachers in a Private Tutoring Institution

“…Chinese language classes are offered in Thailand's mainstream schools as early as in the primary level. Chinese language is a popular foreign language offered in private tutoring institutions that support learners besides regular school hours due to the lack of Chinese environment and parents' little knowledge in Chinese language, many families in Thailand tutoring classes outside mainstream schools, the language teacher's attitude and perspectives need to be taken in consideration alongside with regular schools (Wei & Guan, 2021).…”