bad tuition agencies

really guilty meh? SG

We have heard a lot about bad tutors and how agencies suffered because of these irresponsible tutors.

But then we also have bad agencies here that lie and bully their tutors.

I know of this agent who kept on sms the tutor and threw insults at her. what happened was that the tutor was a school teacher when she signed up for the agency. Then the agency only called her after she had resigned. the agent gave her two assignments below the market rate of teachers and so she took it up. but because the agent kept insisting that it was a teacher's rate she was giving the tutor, the tutor decided to just keep quiet, not say she had resigned and told herself she would not use the agency again. usually that would be what we as tutors do. if we do not want to accept work from the agency, we just don accept. there is no need to update anything with them. on top of that, the agent gave her wrong addresses both times. the second time she sms the agent two days before the jobs started and asked the agent to check. but the agent did not reply. so the tutor sms again an hour before the job started, still no reply. in the end, she did not go and the agent called her up and scolded her for not calling! The tutor at first wanted to call the agency and tell them to take her name off the database, but i told her there was no need to. Just don't accept any more assignments from them loh.

Now, two weeks ago, this tutor was having some trouble at home and had to change timing. Naturally, the parent of one of the assignment got unhappy because she wasn't one who could take changes that easily. so the agent was informed (even though the tutor had finished the first month already) and things blew up from there. the tutor was already mad at the agency and the agent's scolding and bullying tone sounded as if this tutor was her employee. so the tutor told the agent off and said if the parent wanted to stop then stop. she didn't care enough. the money was so little and the rush over already cost her half that pay already. the agent then got angry and called up her ex school to complaint only to find out she was no longer with the school. She then started to threw threatening sms at the tutor and claiming that the school would be taking action etc. Now the tutor is now actually working with MOE still but as a flexi-adjunct. so she called up her ex school and asked the admin manager about this. the admin manager was shocked that the agent would dare said that the admin manager would be reporting the tutor to MOE. the admin manager said no way would she be doing anything like that. So the tutor called the ministry and told them about the incident and the ministry assured her everything was ok. To make sure that the ministry knew about this, the tutor sent in a formal written report that very day.

Now all this while, the agent continued to sms the tutor and threatening her with reports that the school would be logging against her etc. The agent even said things like, "you have messed with the wrong agency." The tutor, having already reported to the ministry, replied the agent's message with 'ok' and then the agent stopped sms-ing totally.

well, from what I see, the only wrong that the tutor did was not to tell them she was still a teacher or not, which technically speaking, she still was. The only thing was she did not tell which school she has been transfered to. And from the way the agent acted, I said it was a good thing she did not tell her.

So as we can see, sometimes, we should really also look at what in the world these tuition agencies are up to these days. they claimed to be MOE registered but lied about the rates and then act like gangsters. How could we as tutors not be weary of such agencies?

And to boot, the agent had no idea what the different kinds of postings are now given to teachers and she simply insisted that the tutor was a liar. For that matter, the tutor feels bad because she had good rapport with the child and feels that the poor child would be the most confused.

How many of these tuition agencies are truly professional in that sense then? According to the information the tutor got from MOE, such agencies can simply register with MOE and MOE would not even care to check on them because they do not have open classes like the tuition centers. They can be MOE registered and claimed they are such and such and using that as a cover, give such terrible treatments and be such bullies. It was a good thing that the tutor was not unknowledgable about MOE and has worked with MOE for over 10 years. But then I am sure that there are tutors out there who had been bullied by agencies and had no idea what to do.

So are there anyone else who has had such bad experience with tuition agencies?