How to open a tutoring center: what you need before you start

To meet society's needs, more and more tutoring centers are being set up. A tutoring center creates a lively and effective learning space for students. So what are the requirements and procedures for opening a tutoring center? This article shares MONA Media we will share with you experience in opening a tutoring center. If you love teaching and want to run the education business model, don't skip the article below!

What is private tutoring?

Private tutoring means teaching outside regular school hours at a school, for a fee paid by the learner. A tutoring program follows the general education curriculum but isn't part of the education plan issued by the Ministry of Education and Training (Bộ Giáo dục và Đào tạo).

Remedial classes for weak students and enrichment classes for gifted students that don't charge students are the school's responsibility and don't count as tutoring. Under Circular 17/2012/TT-BGDĐT, tutoring includes the following activities:

• Tutoring inside schools or public education institutions.
• Tutoring outside schools, at education institutions licensed to organize tutoring.

Requirements for opening a tutoring center

Tutoring centers must apply for a license to teach outside regular class hours. After you submit the file to the competent authority, it will be reviewed and answered in writing within 15 days. To open a tutoring center, you must meet requirements for the center director, the teachers and the facilities.

Requirements for the center director

The person serving as director must meet these requirements:

• Not be a state employee or civil servant.
• The person opening the tutoring center must be healthy enough to work.
• Hold professional qualifications from a professional training environment, at a level matching the school level the center will cover.
• Not be under criminal prosecution or legal supervision.
• By regulation, the center director needs at least 3 years of work experience in education and must be between 25 and 65 years old.

Requirements for center teachers

Instructors at the center must meet the following requirements:

• Be healthy enough to work.
• Hold professional qualifications matching each school level under the Education Law.
• Teachers need good moral character and must not be under legal supervision or prosecution.
• Be confirmed by the Chairperson of the commune-level People's Committee or the head of the managing agency.
• Teachers who are paid from a public institution's payroll may only tutor students they currently teach in the regular curriculum.

Requirements for facilities

For effective tutoring, you need facilities that suit the needs of students and teachers. Facilities at a tutoring center must ensure:

• A spacious, airy and clean learning space.
• Boards, pens, books and other supporting tools.
• Good sound, lighting and air conditioning.
• Security and safety.

Procedures for opening a tutoring center

After meeting the requirements, you need to prepare documents to complete the procedure for opening a tutoring center, such as:

Prepare the license application file

To set up a tutoring center, you need to prepare the documents for the license application, including:

• An application for a tutoring center license on the prescribed form.
• A notarized copy of the enterprise registration certificate or business registration certificate.
• A notarized copy of documents on the right to use the premises of the center.
• Notarized copies of the degrees, certificates and labor contracts of the center's teachers, instructors and staff.
• Notarized copies of the center's programs, textbooks and teaching methods.
• Notarized copies of the center's rules and regulations.

Where to submit the application to set up a tutoring center

Currently, you can submit your application to set up a tutoring center at:

• The Department of Education and Training (Sở Giáo dục và Đào tạo)
• The local Office of Education and Training (Phòng Giáo dục và Đào tạo) where you want to open the center.

Note that you need to prepare one original set and two certified copies.

Processing time

Normally, the time to process the application for a tutoring center license is 15 working days from the date a valid and complete file is received. If the file needs further review, processing may take another 10 working days.

If the file doesn't meet the requirements, the receiving agency will tell you the reason and ask you to supplement or correct the file within 05 working days.

→ Read more: Requirements and procedures for setting up a foreign language center

Things to keep in mind when opening a tutoring center

If you plan to run a tutoring center as a business, note the principles for organizing teaching and the cases where tutoring is not allowed.

Principles for organizing teaching at the center

A tutoring center is a way to help students improve their knowledge and study skills outside school. To run a tutoring school well, follow these principles:

• Hold an operating license from the competent authority and complete business registration.
• Have a team of highly qualified, experienced teachers who love the job.
• Have facilities that are safe and hygienic and suit the size and needs of the students.
• Have a scientific curriculum that fits each grade and subject and stays close to the textbooks and exam requirements.
• Use effective teaching methods that spark students' interest and engagement and let them study on their own and develop their abilities.
• Have a system to test, assess and give feedback on students' results that is open, transparent and timely.
• Have policies to support and encourage students in difficult circumstances or with outstanding achievements.
• Manage, run and coordinate with stakeholders in a professional, effective and responsible way.

Cases where tutoring is not allowed

Under the Ministry of Education and Training's regulations, tutoring is not allowed in the following cases:

• Students who already study more than 2 sessions per day.
• Primary school students may not take extra classes, except for knowledge supplements, enrichment for gifted students, life-skills training and similar.
• Universities, colleges, vocational schools and professional secondary schools may not organize tutoring.
• Teachers working at public institutions may not tutor without permission from the head of their managing agency.

If you plan to open a tutoring center for business or community service, keep a few more important points in mind:

• You must hold an operating license from the local education authority and follow the rules on education quality, workplace safety and disease prevention.
• You may not tutor your own students or students of the school where you work, unless the principal and the students' parents agree.
• You may not tutor content not yet taught at school or content related to national or international exams.
• You may not teach content that distorts facts, breaks the law or endangers students' health and morals.
• You may not tutor using coercive methods, forcing or deceiving students.

And note in particular: if you violate the rules above, you may face administrative or criminal penalties depending on how serious the violation is. You may also have your operating license revoked and be permanently banned from tutoring.

Experience opening a tutoring center: what do you need?

Below are experience in opening a tutoring class that works well and that you can use as a reference.

Come up with the idea for setting up a tutoring center

Any undertaking needs an idea and a work plan. The idea for opening a tutoring center must be feasible, realistic and aimed at specific goals, such as your ability to manage the center or what you want to achieve as it grows.

So besides the idea for the work itself, you also need ideas for staffing, construction costs, infrastructure and so on. At the same time, list the resources you already have so you can anticipate the remaining difficulties of opening the center.

Choose the center's infrastructure

Infrastructure is one of the key factors that decides how effectively a center works. The center needs to provide a suitable learning environment with full equipment that helps students learn effectively. For example, it should meet requirements for desks and chairs, lights, fans or air conditioning, writing boards, projectors and speakers for each classroom.

Note: when buying equipment for teaching, choose carefully so it lasts. Avoid second-hand items: the center uses them constantly, second-hand items have no warranty and are more likely to break. Equipment that fails mid-use disrupts teaching and learning and costs the center more for repairs or replacements.

Also, to support online teaching (if the center adds online courses), consider building your own teaching website. This is not only a smart business move but also creates a flexible and professional learning environment. Online course website design is also a way for centers and education providers to invest and teaching method innovation better fit today's market.

Who the tutoring center serves

The purpose of a tutoring center is to supplement students' knowledge. So define clearly who the center serves from the start so you can plan the teaching and find the best-fitting staff. For example, a center for offline 9th graders preparing for the high school entrance exam will have a different teaching plan from one for 8th graders preparing to move up a grade.

You can also widen your audience through an online Elearning platform. With the Education 4.0 trend, the Elearning market is still wide open, especially for online courses that are polished in every respect. Moving to Elearning can be an attractive source of passive income, and the clearest proof is the e-learning course business model at Khánh Hùng Academy.

The course reached nearly 1 billion VND in revenue in just 1 month after its official launch, and these numbers show that Elearning is a "mainstream income" source, an attractive platform to apply to teaching and training today.

You can follow the link above to join the course on how to sell courses, completely FREE with 30+ quality lessons, nothing held back and no tedious forms. Sign up and start learning right away!

Find quality teaching staff

Whether a center is reputable and high quality depends mainly on its teachers. Teachers need teaching experience and active teaching methods effective application, which will make students know and love the center more.

The center should decide from the start how many staff it needs and what quality they should be. This helps you find the right teachers faster. Choose staff according to the students and subjects. For example, a foreign language center should have a certain number of foreign teachers.

List the costs of opening a tutoring center

Many people's experience running tutoring classes shows there are many costs to opening a center. Listing all the costs lets management plan more clearly and realistically when setting up the center. Costs to list include premises rental, equipment, hiring staff and teachers, center advertising and so on.

Use tutoring center management software

Managing a center involves many important steps, especially storing, organizing and analyzing data. You can use quality education center management software to make operations run more smoothly. This software has many features to track and manage all of the center's operations, such as:

• Admissions and student registration: Lets you create online or offline courses, classes and lessons, and manage student information, learning records and tuition payments.
• Teacher and teaching management: Helps you manage the list of teachers, teaching schedules, timesheets and teacher pay. You can also track teaching performance through reports and evaluations.
• Content and materials management: Lets you create and share learning content and materials with students and teachers through email, SMS, Zalo (Vietnam's most popular messaging app) and Facebook. You can also connect other content sources such as YouTube, Google Drive and Dropbox to the software.
• Quality and customer management: Helps you improve the center's service quality through features such as customer surveys, notifications and news for customers, and handling customer complaints and feedback.

Software for managing foreign language, tutoring and exam-prep centersis a great tool that helps centers save time, cost and effort in management and operations. One of the leading quality-management applications is MONA LMS – Center management software developed by MONA Software, which currently provides a complete solution for centers and education providers.

Using MONA LMS education center management software goes a long way toward building a center's reputation and improving revenue by offering quality courses to learners.

A very successful "education digitization" partnership project is WISEDU International English and Certificate Exam Prep Center.

WISEDU English has always led the way in renewing teaching methods and applying technology to management and training. That is also why WISEDU partnered with MONA to develop the MONA LMS system in order to:

• Manage the center's finances transparently and automatically
• Easily arrange class schedules, timetables and attendance in the system
• Online exam-prep scoring with anti-cheating features
• Optimize the entire management process to cut time and staffing needs
• Give learners a flexible and convenient learning experience

And you can try the features of MONA LMS software for yourself right now!

In addition, using software to manage centers has become an inevitable trend in teaching and training. Likewise, in the business world, managing and developing staff increasingly calls for the support of technology tools. That is why internal training management software  – MONA SkillHub has emerged and is increasingly trusted by businesses as an essential solution for building a strong team and a lasting learning culture.

FAQ

Do you need a license to open a tutoring center?

Under current regulations, tutoring centers in vocational education and continuing education must apply for an operating license from the state education management agency. Tutoring centers in general education and higher education may operate freely but must follow the rules on education quality and protect learners' rights.

What do you need to open a tutoring center?

To set up a center, you need to meet these education center requirements:

• A suitable location for classes
• A team of qualified, experienced teachers
• Assured curriculum, lesson plans and teaching materials
• Assured equipment, tools and aids to support teaching and learning
• Equipping your shop with a business plan for the center and effective management of operations

What is the business code for registering a tutoring center?

Under Vietnam's economic sector classification, the business code for registering a tutoring school is 85.59, Other education not elsewhere classified.

Where do you submit the application to set up a tutoring center?

If you want to open a tutoring center in the field of:

• Vocational education and continuing education, you must submit your operating license application to the Department of Education and Training of the province or centrally run city where you want to open the center.
• General education and higher education, you only need to submit a business registration file to the Business Registration Office of the province or centrally run city where you want to open the center.

Above are some of the experience in opening a tutoring center that MONA Media wants to share with you. We hope this information helps you understand what you need to open a tutoring school and apply it to setting up an effective center. Make a detailed plan and start now to build a quality center.