Private tuition and home tutoring

What the business is

Going to a student's house to teach, or running a batch of two or three in your own room. There is essentially no capital: a notebook, a pen and the fare. For most college and university students in Bangladesh this is the first money they ever earn. The demand is not guesswork. CAMPE's Education Watch 2023 found that at both primary and secondary level more than three-quarters of students used a private tutor or went to a coaching centre. The reason is in the same numbers: 8.166 million secondary students against about 247,000 teachers, one teacher per 37 students in government schools, and a fifth of teaching posts lying vacant. The tutor sells what the school cannot deliver. The money is monthly and per student. A student at Dhaka Collegiate School pays Tk 6,500 a month for two home tutors, which works out at Tk 3,250 each (September 2025); rates outside Dhaka are lower but could not be verified here. Education Watch put the annual household spend on one secondary student at Tk 27,340 in 2022 - Tk 22,909 in the mofussil and Tk 35,662 in towns - and in the first six months of 2023 alone it rose 51 percent to Tk 20,712, driven mainly by private tutor fees and note and guide books. The one big risk is losing the tuition: a month the student skips is a month with no income, and asking for arrears usually ends the job.

Unit economics

What you need to start

• Notebooks, pens, your own copy of the class textbook and guide, and a whiteboard if you take batches. Photocopying is a real cost: 93 percent of secondary students rely on guide books.Equipment
• Trade licence: nobody takes one to tutor alone at a student's home, but once you run batches in a rented room and it looks like an establishment, the city corporation or municipality licence applies. Form Tk 10, book Tk 50, standard tax Tk 30, stamp Tk 150-300, licence fee by trade type.Licence
• Restriction on government and MPO teachers: under the Directorate of Primary Education instruction of 10 March 2025, school rooms may not be used for private tuition or coaching, and those in charge are held responsible for any breach.Licence
• Command of the textbook for the class you teach and the ability to find where the student is weak. The bigger skill is talking to the parent, because that is what keeps or loses the tuition.Skill
• The source of students: parents you know, local schools, and tuition media. Get the media's advance payment and refund terms in writing first.Supplier
• The student's home is the workplace, so no space is needed. To run batches you need a corner of your own room or a rented one, with seating and light.Workspace

How the work runs

1. 1Decide which class and which subjects you will teach. Maths, English and science are in the highest demand; DSHE's own monitoring shows secondary students' English and maths skills have fallen further.
2. 2Look for students inside your own neighbourhood. If travel eats more than an hour a day you cannot take more than two tuitions, and the fare eats the profit.
3. 3Get the first student through people you know: seniors, neighbours, a notice at the local mosque, temple or shop. Try this before going to a tuition media.
4. 4If you use a tuition media, first find out how much they take in advance and whether it is refundable. Students in Chattogram have complained that getting a tuition through one requires paying a large sum up front.
5. 5Settle three things on day one: how much a month, how many days a week, and on what date the fee is paid. Saying it aloud at the start prevents the argument later.
6. 6In the first month find out where the student is actually weak and tell the parent. A tutor who does that in the first month rarely loses the tuition.
7. 7Sit with the parent when exam results come. That is when a fee rise or a new student comes up, and almost every new student comes from an old parent's recommendation.
8. 8Consider a batch of three or four. Teaching three in the same hour triples the hourly income, but it needs a room and the parents' agreement.
9. 9If you are a school or madrasa teacher, check the rules. On 10 March 2025 the Directorate of Primary Education instructed that school rooms may not be used for private tuition or coaching, and that those in charge will be held responsible.
10. 10Once the batch grows into something like a coaching centre, take a trade licence from the city corporation or municipality for the rented room. At that point it is no longer tuition, it is an establishment.
11. 11Write down each month's income and travel cost. Without the book nobody can tell which tuition is actually paying after the fare.

Sources

• সিটি কর্পোরেশন থেকে ট্রেড লাইসেন্স প্রাপ্তির ধাপ সমূহ

  Collected: 16 Sept 2026

  Supports: Starting capital · বাংলাদেশ

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