Turkey’s large private tutoring industry, which has been growing enormously for decades on the sidelines of the central university entrance exam system, is in the spotlight once again, with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan – and a Cabinet minister – pledging to abolish them within a year . There were 4,055 firms offering private tutoring services in Turkey last year, according to the education industry report issued by the Union of Chamber and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey (TOBB), and more than 1.2 million students attended private tutoring courses last year . The number of such schools was only 1,730 in 2000, with 174,496 students . (source www.turkishweekly.net)