Most pple in other professions/industries have an unforgivable
misconception on teaching and/or tutoring as 'easy money'.
There is no such thing as a free or easy lunch.
Teaching (ie. MOE teaching) is easily one of the toughest
white-collar (ie. non blue-collar) jobs out
there. Tutoring, in contrast, is a non-reliable,
non-steady, highly volatile means of income.
Do not (be a fool and) expect easy money from either profession,
especially in today's chronically ailing economic context. (In the
past, if you wanted easy money, go be a banker. But so much for
that.)
I've mentioned on occasion in the past, how
unfortunate it was to have brilliant young minds who could have
contributed to science and technology, give in to temptation and
the lure of easy money, to go over into banking and finance. Well,
the world economic crisis went some way into dealing with that
disease. But it seems now, accounting is the next new best
profession to make lots and lots of money (overtaking
banking in the wake of recent events).
Back to teaching and tutoring. My recommendation (which has been
also been echoed by others in this thread), is to go for both
if you can. If you can succeed in your application, go teach as an
MOE education officer. Then, if circumstances (or your free will)
has it such, you can always give tuition subsequently to supplement
and/or replace your income.
I voluntarily resigned from MOE teaching, truthfully for a good
variety of reasons (many of which would have sufficed on their
own individually, incidentally), but I always encourage pple who
have the genuine interest and passion, to try to take up
teaching as a profession if they can (MOE may still be
recruiting, but don't forget that increasingly so (in part thanks
to globalization), supply outweighs demand, and every year the
supply or number of new applicants (and consequently no. of
rejected applicants as well)
progresses geometrically/exponentially while no. of teaching
places available (ie. demand) progresses only
arithmetrically).
As for tutoring, don't be fooled/blinded by the grandiose
stories of a few who make $20k every month; for
every one of these rare cases, there are many more
who struggle to make barely $2k per month.
Bottomline, whether teaching, tutoring, or any other profession,
there's no such thing as a free lunch, no such thing as easy money.
Don't go into either with foolish delusions, or you're doing
yourself a disservice.
If you're willing to work hard, work smart, and work
cosmoethically (ie. for the greater good of all beings in the
Universe; in 'Hero', Jet Li the assassin could have murdered the
Qin emperor and taken his personal vengeance, but Tony Leung wrote
two words in the desert sand that reminded him of the bigger
picture and the greater good - Tian Xia), then with Love as your
guiding light, may you Live Long and Prosper.
