B ritish books are shit,” Yusuf says, slamming shut my copy of “Pride and Prejudice”. “Just Western propaganda. Like the BBC, and the Queen.

Education First-class flights, chauffeurs and bribery: the secret life of a private tutor

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2021-07-08 12:30:04

B ritish books are shit,” Yusuf says, slamming shut my copy of “Pride and Prejudice”. “Just Western propaganda. Like the BBC, and the Queen.” Pale light filters through the heavy silk curtains. I have been sitting in the pit of this cavernous townhouse in Belgravia, London, for two hours with a meaty 15-year-old who has a passion for £3,000 ($3,800) Turkish vodka and ethno-nationalism (the one, I imagine, fuels the other).

So far, Yusuf has discussed his distaste for British women, the way he gets around masturbation (“It’s not allowed in my culture, so I pay someone to do it for me”) and his ardent belief in a resurgent Ottoman Empire. I am meant to be preparing him for his GCSEs, national exams taken in a range of subjects at the age of 16, as well as the interview process for entry to a new school at sixth form, the final two years of secondary education. “These schools should be applying to have me,” he says. “Can’t we just buy a library or something?”

Yusuf is intelligent enough to realise that tutoring will have little bearing on his life chances. Irrespective of his exam results at any stage, he will enter the family firm and is unlikely ever to be short of money. For Yusuf, the usual motivations for working with a tutor – the promise of gold stars, high grades, top universities and other coveted keys to the doors of success – do not apply. He has seen into the heart of tutoring and his verdict is that it is a sham.

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