The ABC Tackles the Use of School Children to Sell Home Tuition

Civil Rights campaigners the; Association of Pension & Benefits Claimants CIC, simply called the ABC for short, has asked the Shadow Deputy Education Minister Angela Rayner MP and Colchester MP Will Quince to ask Trading Standards and the HMRC Minimum Wage Unit to examine the affairs of online tuition provider EBS Systems Limited, trading as Exemplar Education. We have also been talking to John Swinneys office, the Scottish Education Minister.

The ABC is also requesting a review of sister Company’s such as The Student Support Centre, that provides the Maths and English courses on video & DVD.

Exemplar Education provides home tuition courses via the Internet and claims the courses are…a highly structured, user-friendly, online teaching system, specifically created to support the UK National Curriculum.  However, critics point out that the system features very dated looking videos from Australia, and through the Company claims there are 6,000,000 million questions online, the ABC are keen to find out if the system really does meet the standards of the National Curriculum?

Most controversial of all is that sales lead for the company are provided by school children taking home leaflets with a very modest administration payment to their school, promoting an appointment, with what can be a high-pressure, commission driven, salesman, called a Course Adviser. 

There has been a stream of complaints from families locked into loans they cannot easily get out of, despite changing circumstances. The ABC - an organization that assists people on low incomes are concerned that families hoping for a better life for their children are getting locked into burdensome finance agreements. Children it has been pointed out could become bored due to the jaded, tired and very dated looking ‘Australian’ presentation. Migrant workers and that less Internet savvy, are more likely to purchase courses without doing any background research, say the ABC.

Image: Exemplar Educations dated presentation featuring Australian videos. 

Mums Net, and Money Adviser have received a substantive number of complaints and the Guardian and Telegraph newspapers, have published damming articles about, The Student Support Centre Exemplar educations sister organization. This alone ought to flag up concerns says ABC founder, Simon Collyer. Parents naturally assume that if a child’s school is promoting this offer it must be checked out in some way, even though the accompanying letter denies any endorsement.  

Before Head Teachers use school children as ‘bait’ to help Exemplar sell these courses, there needs to be due diligence carried out, say the ABC. The use of school children in this manner is questionable? The ABC is hoping that Exemplar Education and the 35 other Companies the founder is a director of are given official scrutiny, and the practise of using school-children in this manner is stopped.

Complaint articles:

Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2011/may/10/parents-protest-promotion-home-tuition

Telegraph: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/money-saving-tips/9018047/The-2700-tuition-hard-sell.html

Mums Net: https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/primary/1612237-Has-anyone-any-experience-of-The-Student-Support-Centre

ABC Note: We have been speaking to the Editors of NUT magazine and Headteacher Update and we hope to bring you more on this matter later. Last year we battled Right2Improve Ltd and sister Company Enviroglaze. We understand that following a Police/Trading Standards raid both companies have gone into liquidation (SEE HERE): https://www.essexlive.news/news/essex-news/trading-standards-leading-major-investigation-774299

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