Early years consultant Margaret Edgington said it was 'outrageous, morally wrong and developmentally inappropriate to force-feed very young children so they can pass an entrance test to some private school'.
She blamed the tuition companies, which she accused of making commercial gain out of parents' confusion.
'When parents with very young children seek tuition, these companies should tell them it is not right,' she said. 'We won't produce intelligent, well-rounded human beings by force-feeding them at such a young age.' Parents pay tuition fees ranging from 11 to 25 an hour depending on a child's age.
Clive West, a partner at the Lincolnshire-based company Stepping Stones Tuition, confirmed that his company had helped a two-and-a-half year old who needed to point to his name on the blackboard as a condition of entry into a private nursery, probably attached to an independent school. But he said, 'We do not force anybody to learn, that's practically and morally wrong.'
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