# The unofficial economy of student tutors in Dhaka

> After classes, thousands of university students cross Dhaka to teach younger children, earning money in a job market that barely officially exists.

Published: 2026-10-09 · Desk: News · Source: TezzFeed Desk · By: Maliha Rahham

In Dhaka being a student does not always mean spending your parents’ money. For thousands of university and college students, it can also mean becoming someone else’s teacher after classes. Every afternoon, students carrying backpacks and notebooks travel across the city to teach various subjects to younger children. It is a small economy that most people barely notice but it helps both sides survive.

Private tutoring has become a normal part of education in Bangladesh. A World Bank review found that private tutoring and coaching made up about 26% of household education spending in 2016, rising to around 31% at the secondary level. Education Watch data also showed that around 85% of Class 8 and 9 students took private tuition in 2022 although some of that demand was connected to recovering from pandemic related learning losses.

For the tutor, this is not just about helping someone with their homework. It can be a proper source of income. University students often use tutoring money for transport, food, university expenses and sometimes even to help their families. During the COVID 19 school closures, The Business Standard reported cases of university students whose families depended on their tutoring income and suddenly lost that money when tutoring stopped.

The system is also surprisingly informal as there is usually no contract, fixed salary scale or official working hours. A guardian might ask around among relatives, neighbours or other parents for a tutor. Students also post in Facebook groups or use tuition agencies, commonly known as “tuition media”. Some agencies connect tutors with families but may take a large cut from the tutor’s first payment. A 2026 report by The Business Standard described agencies taking around 40–50% of the first month’s payment in some cases. 

Then there is the unspoken ranking system. A student from BUET, Dhaka University or another well known university can often charge more simply because of the name of their institution. The subject matters too. English medium tuition can also cost more because fewer tutors are comfortable teaching those curriculums. Current Dhaka tuition listings show how much the rates can vary depending on the student’s class, subject and tutor. 

But the job is not always as easy as “teach for an hour and get paid.” Tutors can spend an hour travelling through Dhaka traffic just to teach for another hour. Some guardians expect their child’s marks to improve almost immediately. Others cancel classes during holidays or exams, delay payments or suddenly decide they no longer need a tutor. Since there is rarely a formal agreement, the tutor usually has little protection.

There is also an interesting imbalance here. Families are paying for something they increasingly see as necessary while many of the people providing it are students themselves. One is trying to improve a child’s grades while the other may be using the same money to pay for their own education.

So the next time you see a student rushing out of campus with a backpack, they might not be going home. They might be heading across Dhaka to teach a Class 7 student algebra for the evening. It is not officially called a job market but in a city where private tuition has become deeply connected to education, that is basically what it is.

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