How to Choose an Economics Tutor in Singapore

Not always. A tutor is worth it when marks are being lost to something a school class cannot fix one script at a time: exam technique, language or structure.

A tutor is a fix for a specific problem, so start by naming the problem. Find the row below that looks most like your child. This applies whether your child is on the IGCSE or the IB track.

A ten-minute test you can run tonight. Ask your child to explain one recent topic aloud, then write a short answer on it against the clock. If the spoken explanation is good and the written one is thin, you are in the technique or language rows. If both are shaky, the gap is content.

The checklist below is almost identical for both. What differs is what you're checking it against.

Practically, this changes what you ask. For IGCSE, the nine questions below (exam technique, marking, progress) cover most of it. For IB, ask the same nine questions, and add one more: how IA commentaries are supervised and drafted, since that is 20–30% of the final grade and isn't a single exam-day skill the way a written paper is. See our IA guide for what that support should look like.

If your child is moving from IGCSE to IB, the most useful question is whether the same team teaches both levels. Continuity in how command words and evaluation are taught tends to make the jump feel like a continuation rather than a fresh start.

No single format suits every student. The right one depends on the problem you identified above and on how much structure your child needs.

KS Academia Prep runs small-group classes of a maximum of 8 to 10 students for both IGCSE and IB Economics, so we lean toward that format for students who need structure and regular marked practice. We are equally clear that a good one-to-one tutor can be the better fit for a single, specific gap or an awkward schedule. Whatever the format, the nine questions below apply.

Ask these nine questions and insist on specific answers. Vague answers are the most reliable warning sign.

Guaranteed grades, exam predictions and unnamed teachers are the clearest three.

• A guaranteed grade. No honest tutor can promise one, because the student is the one who sits the paper (or, for the IA, writes the commentary).
• A claim to predict the exam. Cambridge and the IB set the papers. Prediction is marketing, not teaching.
• Results with no names. A percentage of top grades with no named student, cohort size or date cannot be checked.
• Reviews you cannot read. A star rating with no readable reviews behind it tells you very little.
• A tutor who cannot describe the current papers. If they cannot outline the paper structure for your child's exact level from memory, the materials are probably not current.
• Pressure to pay a full term upfront before your child has sat in on a lesson.

Apply the same test to us. That is why the reviews further down are quoted word for word and labelled by source.

Watch what your child does, not what the tutor says about themselves.

1. Who does the talking? Your child should be answering questions, not only listening.
2. Are command words taught out loud? Identify, explain, analyse and discuss (or evaluate, at IB) each demand a different depth of answer. A tutor who names them is teaching marks, not only content.
3. Is a diagram drawn and labelled to mark-scheme standard? A diagram without labels or interpretation earns little, at either level.
4. Does your child leave with something to do and a way to check it? Homework or a marked piece, and a clear idea of what happens next week.
5. What does your child say on the way home? Ask them to explain one thing they learned. If they can, the teaching landed.

If you can, try two or three providers and compare. Choose the one where your child understood the most, not the one with the boldest claims.

Examiner experience tells you a tutor has been trained on one session's markbands and has marked scripts against them.

It does not show how they teach, whether they will mark your child's own work line by line, or whether the person you met is the person who teaches the weekly class. So ask to see the feedback itself: bring a recent marked test or essay to a paid trial lesson, and check whether each comment names the line that lost the mark and shows how to rewrite it.

KS Academia Prep's tutors are not IB or Cambridge examiners. Practice answers at KS Academia Prep are marked against the published IB criteria or Cambridge mark schemes, with written comments on where the marks were lost, and a paid trial lesson is the way to judge that feedback for yourself.

Compare tutors on the cost of a whole term, then on what you are tied into.

Work out the term as the fee per lesson, times the lessons in each month, times the months in the term, plus any registration fee, deposit, materials and exam-season extras. Then ask what happens if it is not working: whether a term is paid upfront, and how much notice you must give to stop.

At KS Academia Prep there is no sign-up fee, no deposit, no material fees, no printing fees and no hidden fees. Lessons are billed monthly for the lessons in that month, with no term-long commitment.

Two centres can charge the same fee and give very different value, so compare what comes with the fee between lessons.

Ask whether homework is marked with written comments, whether your child can ask the tutor questions between lessons, and whether there is a supervised place to study, so the work done between lessons follows the same method as the lessons themselves.

At KS Academia Prep the fee includes all learning materials, marking of the work your child hands in, questions to the tutor on WhatsApp between lessons, and recordings of missed group lessons on request. Enrolled students can also join Study Supervision free of charge: supervised study at the centre led by a Teaching Assistant, which keeps lessons, homework and revision in one consistent learning environment.

For IGCSE, Grade 9 gives the longest runway. For IB, starting at the beginning of Grade 11 gives a full two years including the IA. Either way, the exam session sets the deadline.

For IGCSE, starting in Grade 9 builds the analytical habits that IB Economics later demands. Starting in Grade 10 still works, particularly when the problem is technique rather than missing content, provided it begins well before school mock exams.

For IB, the Diploma runs across Grades 11 and 12, and the Internal Assessment is drafted well before the final exams, so a tutor should be planning IA milestones from early on, not only exam revision in the final months.

Then work backwards from the session. Check whether your child's school enters candidates in May/June or October/November, and agree a plan with the tutor for content coverage, timed past papers and the final month. Our IGCSE Economics past papers archive and IB exam calendar are useful references either way.

Here are our answers for both levels.

KS Academia Prep teaches IGCSE and IB Economics at Far East Shopping Centre, #15-06, 545 Orchard Road, Singapore 238882, a short walk from Orchard MRT (NS22 / TE14), and online for students outside Singapore.

One team plans both levels, so the IGCSE years are built to prepare students for IB Economics at SL or HL, if they choose to take it.

Kirby Ng leads IGCSE Economics and Jason Low, our Head of Economics and IB Curriculum Designer, leads IB Economics. Both teach IB. Their partnership goes back further than KS Academia Prep: Jason taught Kirby A-Level Economics when Kirby was in junior college. Today they align their teaching style and syllabus coverage so that what a student learns at IGCSE is what IB Economics builds on.

• One method at both levels. The KS Academia Prep Evaluation Method is taught at IGCSE and used again at IB, so students do not relearn how to evaluate when the questions get harder.
• IB habits from Grade 9. IGCSE homework and worksheets are set to build the analytical habits IB Economics later demands, so Grade 11 feels like a continuation rather than a fresh start.
• Reviewed by the IB lead. Jason reviews IGCSE lessons, so the foundation IB depends on is checked by the person who teaches IB.
• A handover with notes. As each student moves into Grade 11, Kirby passes their strengths and gaps to Jason, so IB teaching starts from where the student actually is.
• A better-informed HL or SL choice. Two years of marked work shows whether a student suits Economics at Higher or Standard Level, around the time the IB subject-choice form is due. That evidence feeds into our IBDP Subject Consultation.
• Holiday programmes every summer and winter. Intensive holiday programmes run in each summer and winter break, alongside weekly lessons.

That is the design goal: a student who takes IGCSE Economics with us and goes on to IB Economics starts Grade 11 already working the way IB expects. The grade still depends on the work the student puts in, which is what Study Supervision is for.

Two things sit alongside Economics tuition at KS Academia Prep: a supervised place to actually do the work, and help choosing the right subjects in the first place.