FIRST
factories moved there, then call centres; now
private tuition for British schoolchildren is to
be made available over the internet from India.
Two firms on the subcontinent are to begin
offering British pupils aged eight to 17
one-to-one lessons with a private tutor from
early next year.
The companies, which
already tutor hundreds of American children on
the internet, will initially specialise in
maths, although help in science subjects will
follow. “The UK is a very big market and we will
target it next year,” said Shantanu Prakash,
chief executive of Educomp Datamatics, one of
the companies involved.
“Our area is maths and we have found that
universally across the world we have seen that
maths is a huge problem.
“The UK doesn’t have many maths teachers; on
the other hand in India we have intellectual
talent and capital available for tutoring.”
Private tuition for schoolchildren in Britain
has boomed in recent years, with many parents
seeing it as an alternative to going the whole
hog and sending their children to private
schools.
Tony Blair hired a private tutor to help his
eldest son Euan through his A-levels — an
example of middle-class insecurity that has
helped create a market worth an estimated £200m
(€290m) a year.
But as demand has risen, finding a tutor in
many areas has grown difficult and prices have
jumped to between £20 and £30 an hour.
In India, by contrast, there is a glut of
well-educated maths and science graduates,
allowing the two Indian companies — both based
in Delhi — to charge just £15 an hour.
Educomp has already begun offering tuition to
children in America, where it has 600 students.
The second company called Career Launcher has
tutored 800 children there.
The companies use a special software called
White Board, which allows students to interact
with their tutor in real time. They can even
talk to them as they work through problems.
Students can either use the services on an ad
hoc basis when they need help with a particular
problem, or book a series of tutorials that
mirror their school curriculum.
Mylène Curtis, managing director of Fleet
Tutors, one of Britain’s biggest education
agencies, said that, even with lower charges,
competition from India would not pose a
significant threat.
“Parents, even our foreign clients, demand
teachers who are educated in the UK and are
knowledgeable and experienced in the national
curriculum,” she said. “Online is an effective
complement, but face-to-face has been around
since the time of
Socrates.”
