Can After-School Tutoring Sustainably Empower Preschoolers’ Development? —A Longitudinal Study

Abstract

Participation in after-school tutoring is becoming increasingly prevalent among young children in China and worldwide. This study explores whether children aged 3 to 6 can achieve sustainable and empowered development by participating in after-school tutoring, using propensity score matching based on the data from 664 children on a baseline date and 367 children on a follow-up date. It is found that gender, age, and family socioeconomic status are major factors that affect preschool children’s participation in after-school tutoring. Baseline data reveals that participation in after-school tutoring has no significant impact on children’s learning and development. Follow-up study after one year shows that, except for the significant improvement in children’s language development, after-school tutoring has no significant impact on other areas. Further subsampled studies show that after the children in 3- to 4-year-old classrooms at baseline who have participated in after-school tutoring enter 4- to 5-year-old classrooms, they have significant improvement in social development, language, and learning quality. However, there is no such significant improvement for the children from 4- to 5-year-old classrooms to 5- to 6-year-old classrooms. In general, after-school tutoring has no immediate effect and limited lasting impact on preschool children’s learning and development. These findings suggest that parents should respect the laws of child development, and advanced or incorrect tutoring will only increase the pressure on children and the economic burden on family, without promoting the sustainable development of children.