RIYADH: For many students, the school day does not end when the final bell rings.
As Saudi families prepare for another academic year starting on Aug. 23, pupils will begin settling back into the rhythm of classrooms, homework and early mornings, but for some, returning to school also means returning to a second academic routine after the school day ends.
Private tutors, online instructors and other forms of supplementary education will once again become part of the weekly schedule, as students seek extra support — or hope to get ahead.
Described as “shadow education” by researchers, this form of supplementary learning exists alongside mainstream schooling rather than replacing it. In their book, “Shadow Education in the Middle East,” researchers Mark Bray and Anas Hajar define the phenomenon primarily as fee-paying academic education that supplements formal schooling. It can take place one-to-one, in groups, in large classes or online.
However, “shadow education” does not always mirror what happens in the classroom. Researchers note that while some students use tutoring to reinforce material they have already learned, others meet a tutor first, giving them a head start before the same topic gets covered at school.
Saudi Arabia is no exception, and evidence suggests that supplementary education is already a familiar part of many students’ academic lives.
Students in Riyadh began the first day of school on Sunday. (X: @MOE_RYH)
Data from the 2019 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, or TIMSS, found that just over half of Saudi Grade 8 students, 50.2 percent, reported receiving extra help in mathematics, while 47 percent said the same for science.
What is more interesting than the numbers, is why students were seeking that help. Among those receiving extra mathematics tutoring, nearly three-quarters, 72.7 percent, said it was to excel, rather than to keep up. The picture in science was almost identical: 72.1 percent wanted to get ahead, compared with 27.7 percent trying to catch up with the curriculum.
The TIMSS figures cover both paid and free supplementary tutoring, so they should not be read as a measure of the Kingdom’s private tutoring market specifically. But they do reinforce something the wider research repeatedly points to; tutoring is not necessarily academic triage.
For many families, supplementary education can instead be a deliberate use of time to build skills, strengthen confidence or get ahead, rather than a rescue plan for a child who is falling behind.
As the new school year begins, Arab News spoke with a student, a parent, and a teacher who also tutors privately to understand better why families are turning to supplementary education, and to ask a central question; is extra support becoming essential, or simply another way to get ahead?
Rawan Fallatah, 16, an 11th-grade student at Jeddah Gifted School, said that tutoring was never meant to be a substitute for studying on her own. She takes private lessons in mathematics, biology, chemistry and physics, with the occasional French session depending on how heavy her workload is or how close exams are.
“I see tutoring as additional academic support rather than something that replaces my own studying,” she told Arab News.
“My parents initially encouraged me to consider private tutoring, but I also recognized that I could benefit from more individualized academic support.”
What draws her to the classes is the individual attention.
“My tutor allows me to learn at my own pace and ask questions I might not have time to ask in class,” she said. “Sometimes my tutor also introduces topics before we cover them at school. So when we eventually study them in class, I already have a strong foundation, and I feel much more confident participating.”
That is almost exactly the “head start” effect Bray and Hajar describe. Tutoring does not always follow the curriculum from behind. Sometimes, it gets there first.
For Fallatah, the extra lessons are reassuring too, and they help with the academic pressure.
“Knowing that I have someone who can help me work through difficult topics gives me reassurance and confidence,” she said.
Fallatah’s mother, Taghrid Al-Hajj, an Arabic and Islamic studies teacher, pushes back against the idea that hiring a tutor necessarily means a child is falling behind academically.
To her, learning from someone older and more experienced has value in itself and can be an educational experience beyond academic performance.
“He is older than you and has more experience than you,” she said. “He gives you information that you might take much longer to reach in one session, so you save yourself a lot of effort.”
That does not mean the student gets to switch off, she added. The responsibility for learning still sits with the child — a tutor is a “guide” who can help students use their effort more efficiently.
Her own children’s experience with supplementary education has not even been limited to mainstream school subjects. They took private mental arithmetic classes and went on to win national and international awards.
For Al-Hajj, that is precisely the point. She sees extra learning at home as a way to use a child’s free time productively, building new skills, confidence and interests that school alone may not provide.
As a teacher herself, she said she can often tell which of her students receive extra support outside school from the way they carry themselves in the classroom.
Mohamad Rashad, an English language trainer and private tutor, works with students ranging from young children to university age. Some come to him because they are struggling with schoolwork. Others want to sharpen their English more broadly — whether in speaking, reading, writing, listening or exam preparation.
The biggest difference between his classroom in the morning and his private sessions, he said, is precision. In a regular classroom, he has to meet curriculum targets while managing students with different abilities and backgrounds. In a one-to-one setting, however, he has far more room to adapt and personalize.
“You tailor the materials to meet the very specific needs of students,” he said.
That flexibility is also, according to Bray and Hajar, part of what makes one-to-one tutoring particularly appealing to students and families.
Rashad, however, is wary of personalized tutoring turning into a crutch. With so much individual attention available outside the classroom, he said that students could become dependent on it. As a classroom teacher, he therefore tries to ensure his students complete as much of their learning as possible during the school day rather than carrying a mountain of extra work home.
“I myself try to accomplish everything in class,” he said. “Students have their own social life. They need to socialize and interact with their families.”
Al-Hajj takes a slightly different view. Students already experience a degree of social life during the school day, she said, and school is not entirely academic. For her, there is therefore little harm in using some after-school time to provide additional support or develop a child’s interests.
Bray and Hajar’s research warns that wealthier families can purchase more — and often higher-quality — tutoring than lower-income households, potentially widening gaps in educational outcomes rather than closing them.
Al-Hajj does not dismiss the cost concern, but she also does not believe a private tutor is the only route to supplementary education. More affordable options, including online lessons, educational apps, AI tools and social media, can play a similar role. What matters, she said, is that parents actively look for the right form of support for their child.
Rawan Fallatah adds that it is a personal choice and not every student needs a tutor as part of their back-to-school routine.
“I don’t think every student needs a tutor,” she said. “It depends on the individual and what kind of support they need.”
