Cram school


A cram school is a specialized school that trains its students to achieve particular goals, most commonly to pass the entrance examinations of high schools or universities. The English name is derived from the slang term cramming, meaning to study a large amount of material in a short period of time. The word "crammer" may be used to refer to the school or to an individual teacher who assists a student in cramming.

Education

Cram schools may specialize in a particular subject or subjects, or may be aligned with particular schools. Special cram schools that prepare students to re-take failed entrance examinations are also common. As the name suggests, the aim of a cram school is generally to impart as much information to its students as possible in the shortest period of time. The goal is to enable the students to obtain a required grade in particular examinations, or to satisfy other entrance requirements such as language skill. Cram schools are sometimes criticized, along with the countries in which they are prevalent, for a focus on rote learning and a lack of training in critical thinking and analysis.

By region

Australia

Cram schools are referred to largely as "coaching colleges" or "tuition centres". They are used primarily to achieve the necessary results for the entrance exam for highly competitive selective schools in New South Wales and Victoria. They are also used extensively in English, mathematics and science courses for the Higher School Certificate, Victorian Certificate of Education, and other high school subjects in the final years of schooling.

Bangladesh

In Bangladesh, cram schools are known as "coaching centers" and in some cases, "tutorials". Most cram schools provide help for admission tests of public universities and medical colleges like BUET, CUET, RUET, KUET, Universities of Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi and Jahangirnagar, medical colleges etc., and public examinations like PSC, JSC, SSC, and HSC. There are also some variants which have entered the market of ever-increasing help seekers. For example, cram schools now also prepare students for language tests like IELTS and TOEFL, aptitude tests like GRE, GMAT, SAT, and so on. In recent years, cram schools have also been extended to the tests for government civil services like BCS Examination.

Brazil

Cram schools are called "Cursinhos" in Brazil and are attended by students who will be taking a vestibular exam to be admitted into a university.

Chile

Cram schools are called "Preuniversitarios" in Chile, and are attended by students before taking PAES in order to get onto undergraduate studies.

China

Buxiban are cram schools located in China. They are related to the phenomenon of buke, which is extra study for the improvement of students’ academic performance in National Higher Education Entrance Examination. They exist due to the importance of standardized exams, such as:
  • High school entrance exam.
  • The National Higher Education Entrance Examination, or 高考, mandatory for college admission.
  • English language exams. Passing the College English Test band 4 and 6 is sometimes a prerequisite for bachelor's degree, and the certificates are often important to finding employment. The TOEFL and GRE tests from ETS are required for studying abroad in English-speaking countries.
  • Entrance exams to domestic graduate program. Over recent years the competition has intensified, partially because many new college graduates fail to find satisfactory jobs and seek post-graduate education instead.
China has a test-driven system. Education departments give entrance examinations to sort students into schools of different levels. Examinations like the National Higher Education Entrance Examination are vital, deciding the academic future of the participants. This education system cultivated the cramming style of teaching. Schools and teachers usually regard grades to be the primary goal. This sometimes leads to teachers imparting exam skills instead of knowledge and inspiration. But as the population of students decreases each year and admission to domestic universities expands, the pressure of the Entrance Exam has been reducing.

France

The national exam ending high-school is easy to obtain, and the grades obtained matter relatively little. Thus, baccalauréat cram schools are rare. Individual tutoring is more common.
After the baccalauréat, about 5% of the French students attend the selective Classes Préparatoires aux Grandes Écoles or CPGE. These two-year programs are meant to prepare undergrad students to the entrance exams of high-profile graduate schools in science, engineering and business — including École Normale Supérieure, HEC Paris, EDHEC, ESCP, EM Lyon, ESSEC, École polytechnique, Arts et Métiers ParisTech, Télécom Paris, École des Ponts, CentraleSupélec, École des Mines, and ISAE-SUPAERO. A large proportion of CPGE are public schools, with very small tuition fees. There are about 400 CPGE schools for 869 classes, including about 58 private schools. They have produced most of France's scientists, intellectuals, and executives during the last two centuries.
French prep schools are characterized by heavy workload and very high demands, varying however between schools. Programs are heavier than the first two years in public universities, covering several majors. Students in CPGE have between 36 and 40 hours of class a week, as well as one or more weekly 2-to-4 hours written test on each major. Students are expected to work on their own at least 2 hours a day, while the most ambitious students can work more than 5 hours every evening after classes, as well as during the weekend and holidays. Moreover, students have to take what is called "colles" mainly 2 times a week, which are oral interrogations. For science topics, it consists of an hour-long session where a group of typically 3 students, each on a board, and dealing with a question related to a specific lesson and/or exercises. The teacher listens to, assists and corrects the students, then grades them. Khôlles on languages consists in a 30 minutes test: first listening to an audio or studying a newspaper article and summarizing it, and then writing a short essay on the theme. Everything is then presented orally to the teacher. Literacy khôlles often consist in preparing and presenting an essay.
Entrance competitive exams to the "Grandes Ecoles" consist in written and oral exams. For scientific branches, a project involving research-oriented works has to be prepared. Written exams are typically 4h-long sets of exercises and problems built around a specific topic, and require both reasoning and raw knowledge. Oral exams are often similar to khôlles.
This is a two-year track. In most schools, only the second year is explicitly focused on entrance exams preparation. If a student could not obtain the school they wanted, they can repeat the second year.
There are three main branches :
  • Scientific branch study mainly math, physics and chemistry, IT, industrial sciences, biology and earth sciences. Sub-branches are : math-physics, physics-chemistry, physics-industrial sciences, and biology-earth sciences. Many French research scientists went through scientific CPGE.
  • Economics/business branch study mainly social sciences, economy, math and languages. Many important French public figures and politicians went through this way. Sub-branches specialize in math/economics, economics/social sciences, or management.
  • Humanities branch study mainly philosophy, literature, foreign and ancient languages, history. Sub-branches specialize in social sciences or literature.
The tracks and schools are known for their folklore, and often inherited from early 19th-century generations of students.

Greece

Φροντιστήρια have been a permanent fixture of the Greek educational system for several decades. They are considered the norm for learning foreign languages and for having a chance to pass the university entrance examinations. The preparation for the country-wide university entrance examinations practically takes up the two last years of upper high school, and the general view is that the amount of relevant school hours is insufficient for the hard competition, regardless of the teachers' abilities. This leads to students taking state school lessons from 08.15 to 14.00 at school, going home for lunch, continue for two or three hours in the cramming school and returning to prepare the homework both for state school and "frontistirio". In the weekend, the students usually have lessons in the cramming school on Saturday morning and on Sunday morning revision tests. Unhired teachers by the state find a way to employment through these private businesses.
These two popular views pave the ground for the abundant number of cram schools, also attended by numerous high school students for general support of their performance.

Hong Kong

Cram schools in Hong Kong are called tutorial schools. These cram schools put focus on the major public examinations in Hong Kong, namely HKDSE, and teach students on techniques on answering questions in the examinations. They also provide students tips on which topics may appear on the coming examination, and provide students some sample questions that are similar to those that appear in the examinations. Some cram school teachers in Hong Kong have become idolized and attract many students to take their lessons. These teachers are called "King of tutors ". English and math are the most common subjects taught in Hong Kong cram schools.
Cram schools in Hong Kong are famous because of the stresses from Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education. These cram school teaching includes practicing exam questions and grammar drills. Moreover, they provide model essays for English language exam. However, some schools are not licensed, and few educators have teaching qualifications. Their education is fun and appealing to the students but may be of little use in actually passing exams.