A British schooling - from India.com
- From: ano457@xxxxxxxxx
- Date: 13 Aug 2005 21:05:38 -0700
A British schooling - from India.com
PETER BRICE
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 and lack of
faith in the education system that has helped create a market worth an
estimated £200m 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.
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."
Gary Lawson, 41, a financial consultant from Sevenoaks, Kent, is
looking for tutoring for his children - Sophie, 9, Isobel, 7, and
Jacob, 5 - to help them pass the 11-plus and get a place in a grammar
school. "My kids are already very IT literate and doing something
across a computer would be quite effective," he said. "I also want
some track record: that's my only concern about going down the
offshore route."
.
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