Levelling the tutorial playing field for pupils struggling to pay for studies

Chris Fung Hong-way is trying to do his bit to help students also from Hong Kong struggling with their studies.

Since late last year, Fung, a second-year student at the University of California, Berkeley, has been running a free online platform to help his fellow students find tutors. It is among a host of online platforms that have sprung up to support them.

Far from impressed with the large tutorial school advertisements on buses and MTR platforms, Fung says: "The tutoring industry is too commercialised. At one of the famous chains, students can only see the so-called tutor king on the screen, showing his lecture in rooms crammed with students. They can't see him in person or ask him questions."

By comparison, Defind's tutors are university students.

Unlike some online agencies that deprive students of the chance to meet tutors before their first lesson, Defind gives them total freedom to choose their tutors.