the tutoring market | France

1.1 Presentation and definition of the tutoring market

The tutoring market, also sometimes called "shadow education", covers all activities aimed at students (primary and secondary education) to help them improve their academic level : private or group lessons in specific subjects, homework help for primary school students, vacation courses, correction of papers.

It is at the high school level that students most often request tutoring and studies show that parents are the ones who, in most cases, initiate the process. A distinction is made between the client (the final recipient of the service: the student) and the applicant (the parents).

In 2008, the sector experienced a major crisis due to scandals related to dubious hiring methods and incompetent teachers that negatively impacted the image of the operators.

Faced with this crisis of credibility, many operators, including Anacours and Cours Legendre, have initiated Qualicert certification procedures in order to regain a positive and qualitative image.

The tutoring market is currently growing in France and the tutoring segment provided by companies such as Acadomia will be worth several hundred million euros by 2020. The positive dynamics of the tutoring market have also prompted new companies to enter the market, such as o2, a subsidiary of the Oui Care group, which had a turnover of more than 230 million euros in 2019.

Also noteworthy is the popularity of home tutoring activities, which involved approximately one million students in France in 2020.

The reform of the Baccalaureate in 2021 could be detrimental to companies that provide tutoring services, because as Acadomia director Philippe Coleon points out, the Baccalaureate exams are less important than in previous years, whereas it is for this exam that tutoring is most popular with parents. In fact, he estimates that Acadomia will experience a 25% drop in sales in 2021. However, the tutoring market still has a bright future ahead of it, as we note that there are still many students with academic deficiencies and that, with the various technological advances, the possibility of taking home courses online is developing rapidly.