Aaron and Alex Tan were straight A’s students at school. Growing up in an underprivileged family, the brothers developed a deep passion for learning since they were kids. In a recent interview with Top 10 of Malaysia, the duo share their story on how their passion in teaching led them to establish Top Scholar Education Group Sdn Bhd, an online learning platform that has garnered the attention and interests of millions kids nationwide.
“When we were young, our mother advised us to be very hardworking in our studies as our family wasn’t wealthy,” says Aaron Tan. “That was our motivation and our examination results were excellent. We scored straight A’s in UPSR, SPM and even for our university exams.”
The brothers discovered their passion in teaching when they started tutoring students as a part-time job. “We were studying for a diploma in accounting and a friend requested us to teach her younger sister. That was how our journey in teaching started. We travelled to our students’ homes to teach them on a one-to-one basis,” says Aaron. “When we were students, we had to research and study hard on the topics at school. As such, we are able to utilise these methods to teach our students in a simple, effective and engaging manner.”
After the brothers graduated from university, they decided to start up a tuition centre with the amount of money earned from teaching. “It was difficult for the first 5 years as we didn’t reap any profit,” says Aaron.
“We started the centre without any prior knowledge in business. For the first 5 years, we didn’t gain any profit,” agrees Alex Tan. “However, we persevered as teaching is our passion.”
The business eventually became a success when the brothers realised that they should continue to learn in order to solve the problems they faced. “We attended courses lectured by international coaches, attended seminars and read books,” says Aaron. “After we continued our learning journey, there was significant growth in our business and since the Movement Control Order, our classes are now online.”
“We provide 4 days of online seminars and we focus on different topics such as grammar, tatabahasa, karangan and even exam skills,” says Aaron. “I’m teaching Bahasa Malaysia while Alex is teaching English. The seminar is available at an affordable price of RM9.90 and RM50.00. We also have a monthly intensive training where we provide and show the students how to utilise great techniques in mastering the languages.”
Alex nods in agreement, “We train them to master the skill and the lessons are exciting so the students are happy and eager to learn. Quizzes and contest are conducted during the online classes and students get the opportunity to choose the answers.”
“We are glad to have tutored 6,588 students from 8 states and they have successfully mastered Bahasa Malaysia and English effectively,” says Alex happily. “Our vision is to educate a million students and enable them to master the languages with our simple, effective and engaging teaching technique,” Aaron agrees with a smile.
The founders also ensure that their team embraces the habit of lifelong learning in order to provide the best teaching methods and be good role models to the students. “We also instil the passion of learning in our students so they will possess the right attitude when it comes to learning,” shares Alex. “Learning also enables us to solve problems that we encounter,” Aaron adds.
Top Scholar has over 300 educational videos and it has attracted over a million viewers. “I’m grateful that our free content of live teaching on Facebook and Youtube has attracted over 4.8 million views and we received positive feedback from parents whose kids have developed the interest in learning,” says Aaron excitedly. “Our teaching contents are creative, lively and humorous so students are able to retain their attention in learning,” says Alex with a grin. “We will attach our own photos relevant to the content and this makes learning fun and easy for the kids.”
Aaron believes that teachers should have in depth passion in teaching and love the subject they teach in order to create interesting content. “Teachers should be passionate in teaching, persevere and be determined to conquer challenges in their teaching journey.” “Keep on learning because the best teacher is also the best student,” Alex adds. “Develop your unique selling points for your business as there is always competition in every industry.”
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