Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
When Kelsey Baird began worrying about the complexity of AS-level biology she got a tutor from India.
It is more than 4,000 miles from her boarding school in Fife, Scotland, to Agra, home of the Taj Mahal, but a new e-tutoring system makes the distance irrelevant.
Across India, hundreds of teachers have been recruited to feed a growing demand for online tutors. With maths and science teaching in Britain and the US in crisis, new Indian education companies are rushing to fill the gaps.
Working late into the night to bridge the time difference the e-tutors give individual help. Some work in mini-call centres, fielding appeals for help from children struggling with trigonometry homework. Others sit by computers at home, soothingly guiding pupils on the other side of the world through the technicalities of algebra.
Krishnan Ganesh sold his call centre company to set up Tutorvista, which launched cheap online tuition services in the UK last month.
His company offers students unlimited help for £50 ($94) a month.
Classes are conducted via a whiteboard that allows tutor and pupil to watch each other draw symbols and go through equations together on the Net, using a mouse instead of chalk.
India’s educational standards vary hugely but there is some fine teaching of maths and science, with a traditional and rigorous approach.
India’s new online teachers have not been impressed by the standards achieved by British children.
Like their call-centre colleagues, the teachers go through intensive training to neutralise the way they speak English and have lessons in British culture.
Amelia Gentleman
