Tuition media in Bangladesh: how it works, and the one rule that removes most of the risk
"Tuition media" is the phrase most Bangladeshi families actually use, and it covers two completely different things wearing the same name.
The first is a person with a phone and a notebook who knows some tutors and some families, and introduces them for a cut. The second is a company with a website, a verification process and a published fee. Both are called tuition media. Only one of them has anything you can hold on to when something goes wrong.
This is a guide to telling them apart, written by one of the second kind — so read it with that in mind and check the claims against anybody else's site.
How the traditional model works
A tutor rings a number from a poster, a Facebook group or a friend. The media has a list of families looking for tutors. The tutor pays for access to that list — sometimes a flat fee, sometimes a "registration", sometimes a share of the first month's salary — and is given numbers to call. The word you will hear for the money paid up front is advance.
At its best, this works. Plenty of tuitions in this country were arranged exactly that way and ran for years.
At its worst, the tutor pays for numbers that are stale, already taken, or were never real, and there is nobody to complain to. The complaint is old enough that the national press has written about fraudulent tuition media more than once. If you are a tutor, you have probably heard it from somebody in your department.
The one rule that removes most of the risk
Never pay to be given a phone number.
Money before a placement is a bet on somebody else's honesty. Money after a placement is a share of something that demonstrably exists — you have the tuition, you have the family, the work is real.
That single distinction separates most of the good arrangements in this market from most of the bad ones, and it does not require you to judge anybody's character.
It is worth being precise about the two words, because they get used interchangeably and they are not the same thing. An advance is money handed over *before* there is a tuition — for a list, for a registration, for a phone number. A commission is a share of a tuition that already exists. An advance can evaporate; a commission cannot, because there is nothing to take a share of unless the work is real. The different fee models are set out here.
Our own charge sits firmly on the second side: nothing to register, nothing to apply, nothing to see a tuition. A placement fee is charged once, in the first month, shared between the family and the tutor, after the tuition exists. From month two there is no fee at all and no money passes through us. Every figure is published.
For guardians: the questions that matter
Who is standing behind this? A company with an address and a published fee, or a phone number. Both can be honest. Only one can be held to anything.
What was checked about this tutor? Ask what "verified" means on the site you are using. It should mean somebody looked at a document, not that a box was ticked at signup.
Will my number be given out? On some boards, posting means every tutor gets your phone number. Ask first. Ours publishes the area, the class, the subject and the budget — never your address, never your number.
What happens if the tutor stops coming? Ask before you need the answer.
For tutors: the questions that matter more
You are the side that gets defrauded in this market, so be harder to defraud.
Is anything payable before I have a tuition? If yes, walk. There is no version of this that ends well.
Is the tuition real, and can I see it? You should be able to read the actual requirement — class, subject, area, days, budget — before you commit to anything. Look at the board; everything on it is a real posted requirement.
How much of my first month am I giving up, and to whom? Ask for the number, not the principle. "A small percentage" is not a number.
Who do I ring if the family does not pay me? If the answer is nobody, you are on your own with a stranger's household budget.
Why this matters more than it sounds
A tutor who has been burned once stops applying. A guardian who has been rung by fifteen strangers stops posting. Both of them then go back to asking a cousin, which is why so much tuition in this country is still arranged by word of mouth despite there being a dozen platforms.
The whole point of doing this properly is that neither side needs to trust the other's character — only the arrangement. That is what a published fee, a real posting and a verified identity are for. Not marketing: plumbing.
What good looks like, in one line each
- The fee is published before you speak to anybody
- Nothing is payable before a placement exists
- "Verified" names what was actually checked
- Your phone number is not broadcast
- You can say your area, not just your city
- Somebody answers when it goes wrong
Hold us to all six. What we charge · Post a tuition · Tuition jobs