Challenges of running a one-on-one tutoring center

In recent years, 1-on-1 tutoring has become the main teaching model at many education centers, because it not only personalizes learning for students but also brings high revenue to education providers. However, adopting this model also comes with many risks when a center has no standard management process. Specifically, on the question “What are the challenges of managing a 1-on-1 tutoring center?” is MONA Media shared in detail in this article.

Tuition management

Unlike regular teaching models, where the center sets the tuition for each course or program in advance, tuition in the 1-on-1 model is far more complicated.

This is because in 1-on-1 tutoring, each student follows a different learning path, and each path means a different number of lessons, depending on that student's individual progress.

That is why tuition in this model is calculated from the total number of lessons each student takes in the month. That means every student pays a different amount. And of course, totaling the lessons to work out each student's tuition takes managers a lot of time and careful handling to avoid avoidable mistakes.

Class scheduling

Besides tuition, arranging a sensible schedule for 1-on-1 teaching is also a big challenge for centers, because the process usually takes a lot of time and requires a certain number of staff.

The criteria for scheduling this teaching model at centers are:

• Make the best use of teachers' teaching time.
• Meet students' scheduling needs.

This may not be too hard if a center has only 10-20 students in 1-on-1 classes, but with 100 students or more, it becomes a risk in managing a 1-on-1 tutoring center (because each student now has their own schedule).

In addition, each teacher may take on several 1-on-1 classes. Balancing teachers' schedules while arranging lessons around students' needs becomes much harder and far more time-consuming.

In particular, 1-on-1 tutoring is flexible in scheduling and teaching, which means both students and teachers tend to need schedule changes more often than in other teaching models. This adds even more complexity to the center's scheduling.

→ Read more: How to build a 1-on-1 learning path for students

Managing teaching quality

Teaching quality is the first requirement for the success of 1-on-1 tutoring as we see it today. Beyond in-depth competency assessments when hiring teachers for this model, centers may also face problems managing teaching quality during the teaching process, such as:

• Difficulty supervising and tracking teachers' teaching history, especially at centers with a large number of teachers.
• Difficulty managing lesson content and assessing the quality and teaching methods of each teacher with each student in the 1-on-1 model.
• Difficulty controlling private exchanges between teachers and students.

Managing trial lessons

A trial lesson is an experience that helps students judge a center's 1-on-1 model fairly. However, managing and scheduling these trial lessons is just as complicated as scheduling the official 1-on-1 classes.

Centers still need to fit trial lessons around teachers' schedules and students' preferred times, and deal with rescheduling whenever plans change.

On top of that, securing the resources and budget for these trial lessons is also a challenge. Centers usually offer these lessons for free, so they need to be managed well, for example by limiting the number of free trial lessons per student, to avoid waste and keep the center sustainable.

Besides the major challenges above, the 1-on-1 model can also bring smaller risks, such as managing commissions for advisors and applying the center's promotions.

To keep a 1-on-1 teaching model running effectively, centers need solid solutions to handle and avoid these risks. We hope the information on the challenges of managing a 1-on-1 tutoring center that are MONA shared above helps you prepare thoroughly to run your education center effectively.