Parents and pupils warn that restricting private tuition would make exam preparation harder, drive teachers underground and push up prices.
Belarusian authorities are tightening pressure on private tutors, in a move critics say could deprive pupils of an important way to improve their results while bringing an already independent part of education under state control. On 28 August 2026, Belsat reported that the education minister had declared tutors “unnecessary”, while the ministry announced plans for a so-called showcase of teachers offering individual services.
The proposal has not been presented simply as an effort to improve standards. Experts cited by the publication interpret it as a step towards total oversight and the ideological control of private education. Parents and pupils interviewed by Belsat say private lessons are often essential for preparing successfully for examinations and securing admission to university.
A response to weaknesses in the school system
Families say the demand for tutors reflects shortcomings within Belarus’s state education system. They point to significant weaknesses in the school curriculum, overcrowded classes and the removal of many talented teachers from the system for political reasons.
In that environment, individual tuition can provide pupils with time and attention that are difficult to secure in a crowded classroom. It can also help students address gaps in their knowledge before examinations and entrance campaigns, when competition for university places is particularly intense.
The government’s message that tutors are not needed therefore risks obscuring the reason many families seek them out. The issue is not merely whether private teachers offer an optional service, but whether schools are consistently able to provide every pupil with the preparation required to progress.
Independent teachers face a new layer of control
The proposed “showcase” of teachers would place individual tutors in a framework designed by the education ministry. While the precise operating rules have not been set out in the material, experts see the initiative as an attempt to identify, monitor and control teachers who currently work outside the state system.
Andriy Lavrukhin, a representative of the United Transitional Cabinet, described the pressure on tutors as part of a strategy to “clean out uncontrolled players”. In his assessment, it is easier for the state to bring individual teachers under its authority than to reform the school system itself.
That interpretation places the campaign within a wider effort by Alexander Lukashenko’s regime to reduce the space for institutions and professionals operating beyond direct official supervision. Private tutors are especially vulnerable because they work directly with families and can build reputations independently of the state education system.
Restrictions could push lessons into the shadows
Parents and pupils also warn that banning or sharply limiting tutoring would not eliminate demand. Instead, part of the market would move into the shadows as teachers sought to avoid bureaucratic procedures and taxation.
If a new law or comparable restrictions are adopted, some tutors could stop registering their services formally and continue working privately. That would reduce tax revenues while making the sector less transparent, rather than solving the educational problems that drive families to seek extra lessons.
The likely effects would be felt most sharply by pupils from households with limited financial resources. A reduction in the number of available tutors, combined with persistently high demand before examinations and university admissions, would create an artificial shortage. Prices would then rise, making preparation less accessible to families least able to absorb the extra cost.
The unresolved pressure on families
The authorities are presenting greater oversight as a way to determine who may provide individual educational services. But unless the underlying weaknesses identified by parents and pupils are addressed, restricting tutors is likely to leave families with fewer choices rather than better schooling.
The central question is whether Belarus will expand genuine educational support for pupils or use regulation to bring independent teachers under political and administrative control.
