Tutoring centre’s founder defends kindergarten interview ad campaign that went viral
The co-founder of a controversial tutoring centre whose training classes for kindergarten interviews have been criticised for putting pressure on toddlers says the classes are only trying to help working parents.
The co-founder of a controversial tutoring centre whose training classes for kindergarten interviews have been criticised for putting pressure on toddlers says the classes are only trying to help working parents without making the children's lives "any more miserable than they already are".
The Ever Learning centre was criticised after a photograph of one of its advertising posters went viral online. The poster features a little girl crying and a slogan "You don't like competition? But competition will find you!"
The poster advertises kindergarten-interview training classes for children as young as 18 months and training for primary-school interviews for kindergarten-age children.
"Sign up immediately and let your child become the king of interviews!" the poster says.
In an exclusive interview with the , Amanda Tann, who co-founded the centre with her late husband, well-known English-language tutor Jackie Lai Man-yip, said her detractors had been interpreting the poster wrongly.
She said her classes were not trying to overly stress children but aimed to teach them social skills and manners - qualities she said many kindergarten principals she knew appreciated - through playing and bonding with their parents. The centre would only accept children whose parents were also committed to attending the classes, she said.
"We are not trying to rip off the parents and we are not trying to make the child's life any more miserable than it already is," Tann said.
She said that in her classes, children were happy. "We've helped numerous children enter schools they want to and parents are very happy," she said. "Our teachers love them and children refuse to leave after classes."
The centre charges HK$2,300 for 10 one-hour classes, which means the centre charges HK$230 per hour. The price, Tann said, was "dirt cheap" compared with many other similar classes.
The centre operated between 20 and 30 classes at its five branches in Mong Kok, Kowloon Bay, Sha Tin, Tsuen Wan and Causeway Bay and the classes were all fully booked, she said.
Normally one class would have five children.
Tann said there were similar classes in the city and some were "even more aggressive" than hers, even taking children who were six months old.
She said her critics only needed to call the centre to understand how the classes were not drilling sessions.
Watch: Year of the Dragon toddlers compete for top school spots
