The aim of the study was to explore the views of mathematics and science teachers and their 12th-grade students about private courses. Participants were three experienced teachers, one mathematics and two science, who have worked at a private course in Ankara for at least 10 years, and their three 12th-grade students. Students were attending the same private course and studying for the university entrance exam. This was a qualitative case study in which the interviews were conducted with each teacher and student. The semi structured interviews included open-ended questions. Each interview was voice recorded and lasted approximately 20 minutes for students and 35 minutes for teachers. Data analysis began with open-coding of the transcripts and proceeded to more fine-grained coding. The results showed that experienced teachers preferred to work at private courses. The themes, which the participants described as the differences between private courses and public schools, were time allocation for teaching, the evaluation of the teachers’ performance, teaching for the exam. The categories which were deduced from students’ responses as their reasons for attending private courses were test anxiety, teachers’ quality, overcome to shortcomings and habit. Although all participants pointed out that private courses were a problem in education system they did not agree that just the closure could be a solution for this problem in the conditions of Turkey
