EDUCATION: R6,600 a month to catch up: Inside SA’s costly private tutoring market

When the term report lands and the maths mark is in the red, many South African parents face a familiar dread: another term gone, another set of concepts missed – and no affordable way to stop the slide. In South Africa’s booming private tutoring market, one-to-one lessons can reach up to R750 an hour, pricing out the very learners who need support most, especially in matric.

“When tutoring in a single subject can cost R6,600 a month, extra help stops being about which child needs it and becomes about which family can afford it,” said Taryn Jankes, Chief Marketing Officer at Teneo Online School. “That’s a two-tier system, and it hits hardest at matric, an important year that shapes a child’s future.”

A new analysis by Teneo of 750 live tutoring adverts collected between January 2025 and July 2026 across platforms such as Superprof, Teach Me 2, Tutors SA, company websites and Gumtree, shows an extra-curricular education sector priced far beyond the reach of many working households.

Across all grades and subjects, private tuition averages R330 an hour, but the market operates on a steep sliding scale: R258 an hour at primary school, R379 in Grade 12, and R389 at university level. The steepest costs are in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics subjects. Matric Mathematics averages R427 an hour, rising to R750 at the top end.

Location also shapes what families pay. Johannesburg is the most expensive city at R370 an hour, followed by Cape Town at R343 and Pretoria at R334, with small-town and rural areas averaging R255.

When those hourly fees are translated into a realistic study schedule, the financial burden becomes clearer. For a matric pupil receiving two 1.5-hour sessions a week, a standard three-hour weekly allocation to tackle a severe subject gap, the monthly bill runs to R2,300 for group tutoring, R3,660 at the median individual rate and R6,600 for a premium matric specialist.

A two-tier system built on high fees, late gaps

For many parents, turning to private tutors or online schools is less about chasing an elite edge and more about finding a rescue line when mainstream schooling has failed their child, said Jankes. 

She said the market is increasingly driven by families dealing with severe classroom bullying, learners recovering from long illness or dealing with anxiety, and households needing continuity after relocating. For others, it is simply about seeking private-school teaching standards at a price they can actually manage.

“Much of the private tutoring market exists to plug gaps that were spotted too late. If schools could flag and address those gaps sooner, the reliance on expensive after-the-fact remediation would fall,” said Jankes. 

She expects tutoring costs to keep climbing, especially in high-demand Stem subjects, where the shortage of specialist tutors pushes prices up.

“That’s exactly the two-tier problem: the families who most need help in the hardest subjects are often the ones who can least afford R400 to R500 an hour,” she said. 

When elite school fees are no longer enough

Daily Maverick spoke to a Johannesburg parent whose child attends one of South Africa’s top private schools and now sees a tutor twice a week.  The mother, who asked to stay anonymous, said her child’s average had dropped by around 30% this year. The school’s response, she said, was blunt.

“They told me, ‘It’s time for extra lessons. Honestly, we’re surprised it’s taken this long. All our kids attend private tutoring.’ ”

For a family already paying premium fees for what the school markets as “world-class education” and “the best teachers”, the message has been hard to swallow.

“If you’re charging those fees, the school should be the tutor; it feels like we’re paying twice for the same promise,” she said.

The parent said the scale of private school reliance on tutoring became clear only once she started asking around.

“Most parents I spoke to are paying roughly another 20% on top of school fees just to keep their kids on track. It’s become normalised,” she said. 

Inside the precarious tutoring boom

Daily Maverick also spoke to a Johannesburg-based private tutor, who asked to remain anonymous, about the pressures and hidden costs behind this booming industry.

She has worked both independently and through a tutoring company. Going solo lets her set her own rates and negotiate directly with families, but it comes with invisible labour: marketing, scheduling, invoicing and chasing payments. Working through a company shifts that burden – but at a steep price.

The tutor estimates the tutoring company charges about R500 per lesson, while she earns R210 and covers her own petrol, often adding unpaid travel time on either side of an hour-long class. 

“You are beholden to the will of the economy and your clients. If they decide one month they don’t want lessons, and you’ve relied on that income, sorry for you,” she said. 

On top of this precarity, she says some companies enforce strict non-compete clauses that prevent tutors from taking on former clients privately if they leave.

“If you leave, you cannot do private lessons with your clients,” she said. “They do that because they know that their prices are insane, and it would be a lot cheaper for people to go directly to the tutors.”

The tutor agrees with concerns that private tutoring is quietly entrenching a two-tier education system in South Africa. Families with disposable income can buy intensive one-on-one support, while lower-income families are effectively locked out.

“It’s a crazy amount of money. The only families who can get proper support are the ones who have this level of disposable income,” she said. DM