Released on: September 21, 2008, 4:54 am

Press Release Author: Mohsin Drabu is the co-founder and Managing Director of
www.hometeachonline.com, an online tutoring agency that uses top university students
in the UK to give low cost one on one online tutoring to school children, as well as
many other educational solutions, such as blogs, and posted articles. The company
also operates in France at www.diplomeo.fr and in the USA with www.instatutor.com.


Industry: Education

Press Release Summary: Faced with rising prices for conventional home tutoring, more
and more parents in the western world are turning to online tutoring, with either
top college students, or Indian-based graduates, offering a low cost, high quality
alternative.

Press Release Body: Home tutoring is facing something of a challenging situation
right now in countries all over the globe. For whereas demand is increasing, due to
deteriorating public education systems in many western countries such as the UK, US
and France, the ability to harness private tutoring is getting ever further out of
the reach of the people who need it the most- i.e. parents whose children are at
state schools, and are falling behind. The price of private tutoring in the UK can
be as steep as over £100/hour, and in the US an incredible $700/hour is charged by
some private tutors, so important has private education become.

Fortunately, the market has reacted. Online tutoring has now become a way to bridge
the gap between the haves and the have nots, and if applied properly, its effects on
the global education system could be dramatic. Online tutoring functions via a
number of systems that are proprietary to the internet. Voice Over Internet Protocol
(VOIP) allows conversation to happen online between a tutor and a tutee without any
extra charge, with crystal clear quality. Shared Online Whiteboards allow for
concepts to be displayed as in a physical classroom. Webcams narrow the
psychological distance between tutor and tutee. Chat boxes allow for instant textual
messages to be sent between the 2 participants.

These factors have the effect of eliminating geographical distance as a factor in
learning, which in turn means that online tutoring companies can harness labour
anywhere in the world, thus allowing for access to labour at a fraction of the cost
of what would be charged by many “physical” tutoring systems today. This has been
implemented in 2 main ways:
1. Offshoring. It is the most common operating model for online tutoring companies,
especially in the USA, to use “call centre” style arrangements, where qualified
Indian graduates and teachers offer classes in their own countries. This means that
they can be paid a decent wage relative to what is normal in India (about $3/hour),
reducing enormously the online tutoring companies costs, and allowing for low prices
to be charged. The tutors will be trained extensively in the US curriculum, as well
as US mannerisms and even accent and intonation.

2. Student tutors. Some companies have taken to using another source of low cost and
highly effective labour, namely top university students. Using current students from
Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard or Yale is still a fraction of the cost of a top
“physical” tutor, and has a value, both perceived and practical, that is just as
high. Moreover, the student will know his/her subject inside out, will be of an age
where a rapport with the pupil is easier to strike, and will also be young enough to
remember the details of the exams that the pupil is in the midst of.

Further, it is probably more reassuring for a parent, as well as a school child, to
be taught be someone from a renowned institution from your own country, rather than
someone from thousands of miles away. The cost will be marginally more, but the
perceived value tends to more than compensate for this.

Nonetheless, the combination of these two new teaching models, taking off more and
more in the western world, is sure to be something which if scaled properly, will
drastically change the landscape of teaching and learning for decades to come.


Web Site: http://www.hometeachonline.com

Contact Details: 25 Crabtree Drive, Givons Grove, Leatherhead, Surrey, KT22 8LG, UK

admin@hometeachonline.com

0033 679901540