The Challenge of shadow education : private tutoring and its implications for policy makers in the European Union

This study is entitled The Challenge of Shadow Education. The word Challenge has been chosen for two reasons. First, it is argued, the existence of shadow education is a challenge to mainstream school systems. The shadow sector exposes shortcomings in mainstream systems, and offers a way to compensate for at least some of these shortcomings. Second, the shadow education system raises fundamental issues for policy makers, who must devise appropriate responses and may find this a challenging task. The arena is complex, and requires discerning policies based on the circumstances of particular societies and particular types of shadow education.This report, prepared for the European Commission, focuses on the 27 countries of the European Union. To some extent, the diversity of these countries in economic and social dimensions is echoed in diversity in the scale and nature of shadow education. This diversity can be instructive.