How to Choose an IGCSE or IB Tutoring Centre in Hong Kong
Seven questions worth asking, including the three that most centres would rather you did not.
Every tutoring centre in Hong Kong says the same things: experienced tutors, personalised programmes, proven results. None of it is checkable, and all of it appears on our website too.
Here are questions that produce answers you can actually evaluate.
1. What happens in the first lesson?
The answer you want is a diagnostic: timed work marked against a real mark scheme, followed by a written account of what it found. The answer you do not want is "we'll go through what they're covering in school", which means the tutoring will follow the school's sequence and never address why the student is behind it.
2. Which exam board do you teach?
A centre that does not immediately ask you which board your child's school follows is teaching generic subject content. In the sciences especially, Cambridge and Edexcel differ in practical papers, formula sheets and the phrasing mark schemes reward, and the difference decides the top grades.
3. How many students in a group?
Four is about the limit at which a tutor can watch each student's working as it happens. Six or eight is a class, and a class is what the school already provides. Ask for the number, not the range.
4. Can we change tutor, and what does that involve?
Fit between tutor and student is not predictable in advance, so the ability to change matters. Ask whether it costs anything, how long it takes, and whether you need to give a reason. Hesitation here tells you something.
5. What will you tell us if it is not working?
This is the question most centres handle worst, and the most revealing one. A centre with a real answer will describe a review point and what happens at it. A centre without one will reassure you, which is what you would expect from an organisation that is paid whether or not the student improves.
6. What does the total cost come to?
Ask for the package price, not the hourly rate, and ask what else is charged: registration, materials, assessment fees, cancellation. Hong Kong tutoring hourly rates range widely, and the headline rate is often not what a term costs.
7. Will you help with the IA or Extended Essay, and how?
The right answer describes coaching: question framing, method design, structure and redrafting. If a centre implies it will supply content, data or drafts, walk away. Beyond the integrity problem, IB schools run submitted work through similarity checking and the consequences fall on the student, not on the centre.
What we would say about ourselves
We run groups of four, teach to the specific board, run a diagnostic in the free trial lesson and write up what it found, and will re-match a tutor at any point without asking why. Our small-group rate starts at HK$250 an hour.
What we will not tell you is that every student improves by two grades, because they do not. Ask us at the trial lesson what we think is realistic and we will tell you.