Education, Careers & Professional News
Desi teachers Online Teaching US kids
Capitalising on the shortage of teachers in the US , especially in subjects like mathematics, Indian tutors are finding online education a good revenue spinner in this emerging segment in outsourcing.
An offshoot of business process outsourcing (BPO), education process outsourcing (EPO) is Indias new emerging service offering and is getting wide support from both students and clients in the US.
Sitting in small cubicles, fitted with a headset and pen mouse, these tutors are teaching students subjects like mathematics from course curriculum specified in the US - that, too, in an accent familiar to Americans.
According to one estimate, about 40 per cent of the students in America fail in their mathematics examination and the country needs close to one million teachers over the next 10 years.
Currently, private tutoring is an $8 billion industry in the US and growing at 12 per cent a year. Of that, $3 billion is accounted for by tutoring through the Internet.
By the end of 2005, an estimated 77 million students under the age of 18 will have access to Internet, and thus to the e-tutoring format, official estimates reveal.
Two New Delhi-based Indian companies - Educomp Datamatics and Career Launcher - are early entrants to this new outsourcing business. Many more are expected to join the race, industry experts said.
Career Launcher has imparted tuition to more than 800 students in the US since it began operations 10 months ago and Educomp - which started around the same time - has taught about 600 students.
At present there are two platforms of imparting tuition through the Net - direct interaction with students and working as backhand office for some tutoring companies in US, industry experts explained.
The service is given through a software called White Board in both voice and text platforms. The student and teacher can see each other over the computer and talk on the headphone.
These companies provide their high-end technology driven education service and charge 20 to 35 dollar per hour to students ranging from kindergarten to the graduation level.
All the payments are made through Internet and there is no fear of security problem in the mind of the Indian companies.
In spite of a few US players in this market, Indian companies with their price advantage and huge pool of qualified teachers are on a strong footing and do not feel the competition or enmity from their US counterparts. While Educomp is targeting one million students by 2010, Career Launcher has its eyes set on 1,000 more students by the end of this year.
The process began in 2002 when legislation called the No Child Left Behind Act was passed after the US administration expressed alarm over the increasing failure rate of US students. Its goal is to improve teaching standards and results.