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Although there is considerable anecdotal evidence that the scale of private tutoring is substantial in the Philippines, attempts to document its existence is limited. Using phenomenological inquiry, this study aimed to provide a more eidetic portrait of private tutoring transformation in the Philippines from the perspectives and collective experiences of 11 cram school and formal school administrators from 3 key urban cities in the country. Using a dendrogram, semistructured interviews surfaced three distinct syndromes describing the dynamics of private tutoring phenomenon, namely, the lean on, pass on, and ride on syndromes of private tutoring. Through the years, private tutoring was able to secure its own market niche at the fringes of the mainstream education system and has become more entrenched in Philippine society.

The overall intent of this exploratory study is to test a model that considers demographic characteristics, attitudes toward shadow education and shadow education institutions' service attributes as antecedents of satisfaction level and behavioural intentions among a select group of Filipino university students. To test the seven hypotheses in the proposed model, a total of 959 university students were recruited from one of the comprehensive universities in the capital of the country to participate in accomplishing a multi-aspect survey questionnaire. Results of the exploratory factor analysis yielded three distinct attitudes toward shadow education, namely: success-oriented, compensatory-oriented or efficacy-oriented. Structural equation modelling revealed two competing models of almost similar significant predictors. The model manifested that the aforementioned attitudes are being affected by the student clienteles' problems with academic performance and their perceived quality of education received from secondary school. Additionally, the efficacy-orientation of its clientele and the dependability of the tutor directly affect students' satisfaction level, which further translates to repeat patronage and recommendations. Theoretical and managerial implications of the study are also discussed in this paper.

While the issue on the existence of shadow education institutions (SEI's) has only recently been the subject of investigation in studies in various countries worldwide, it is clear that its market is a huge industry in much of Asia and is growing fast elsewhere. Capitalizing on the annual number of SEI's gathered from key government agencies and processed through time series analysis, this paper purports to establish hard data on shadow education proliferation (1980-2011) in the Philippines with a view of providing valuable insights to both business and educational management areas and to policy makers. Trend analysis showed that prior to 1980, the number of SEI's established per year was negligible but has gained momentum from 1996 to 2004. Apparently, variability in the number of SEI's established each year shall depend on certain business regulation policies of the government, the quality of mainstream education in the country, and workplace competition.