Tutor titan sells ammo for parental arms race

Close observers of Causeway Bay minibuses may notice the name "Capstone" on many of the vehicles. The educational company that specialises in tutoring and school admissions is on a marketing blitz, a sign that it is expanding.

Capstone founder Ronald Po Wing-hong, 34, was born in Hong Kong and raised in Queens, New York, by a self-described tiger mum.

Showing his entrepreneurial streak early, at 13 he sold firecrackers to friends and earned cash with a lawn-mowing business.

After graduating from York University in Canada, Po returned to Hong Kong at 21 to find work. He started tutoring to make ends meet and quickly discovered that there was a great demand for his service.

He launched Capstone in 2003, making it one of the early players in a fiercely competitive college-admissions prepping market. Kaplan and Princeton Review, both based in the United States, have long been the preferred tutoring services when applying to an overseas university. But - and you can thank the craze for super-tutors for this fact - in recent years parents have been increasingly inclined to use a local firm, such as Capstone.

As any parent knows, Hongkongers are engaged in a kind of tutoring arms race. Each family is keen to give their children an educational edge so they have a crack at enrolment at a top university, which means they are all trying to outspend each other on their children's tutoring. This is ruinous for the household budget but great for the education service providers.

Hong Kong parents spend about 14 per cent of their monthly salary on their children's education, according to a survey by MasterCard. The city also has the highest number of families (52 per cent) who send their children overseas to study.