South Asian Business news and information

Whenever the word "OUTSOURCING" pops up, the next word that comes into most people's mind is India. Because of cheap and highly skilled manpower, the country has become a major destination for outsourcing. Along with IT, another new outsourcing market is emerging; online tutoring. India is the best place for online tutorial. Before talking about why India is the best choice for online tutorial outsourcing, I would like to provide some information about online tutoring.

What is online tutoring and what are the advantages?

In simple words, it is just another version of one to one teaching. A knowledgeable person on a particular subject teaches a student of one country on that subject. The whole thing is done via internet: through specially designed chatrooms, e-mails and websites. The student interacts with his/her teacher. All it needs that the student and the teacher have computers and access to internet.

What is the beauty of this whole process? Here are they:

• Easy access, convenient, and cost effective. The student can study at his own time; he does not have to go to another place.
• Many students are shy; they do not talk or ask questions in the class in fear of being ridiculed. On the net, he is alone with his teacher. There is no one to make fun.
• One to one teaching is always very effective and online tutoring is all about that.

Online Tutoring in USA:

• Online tutoring started in the late 90s and the market has been growing ever since.
•  Online tutoring in USA alone would grow by 90% to a $10 billion market in the next ten years.
• The size of the US tutoring market is $2.2 billion and online tutoring accounts for 6 percent of that market. At present, $132 million is spent in online tutoring by the American parents. 1.9 million students of the K-12 schools use online tutoring service. 
• Parents have to pay from $40 to $100 for each hour for the teaching. 

Online Tutoring- another feather on India's OUTSOURCING CROWN:
Swati Arora is a tutor who works everyday at 5 a.m. with her students.  Like Swati, there are many Indian teachers who are teaching American students. India per year earns $5million from online teaching. Out of $132million, India takes away $20 to $25 million. So you can see that it is quite a big business in India. There are companies that hire professional and experienced teachers and train them on how to deal with American accents. Some companies allow teachers to work from their homes and some companies have their offices. At present, at least, six tutoring companies are based in India. Few companies are situated in abroad.Below are given names of few Indian companies who provide online tutoring service.

• Educomp Solutions Limited:
• Tutorvista: Headquartered in Bangalore, presently, this organization has 1400 students in UK. The company is planning to offer its service to native Chinese, Spanish and English speakers. At present, it has 2000 students and it is aiming to make it 5000 within the fall of 2007. 
• Growing Stars: Headquartered in Santa Clara, this company started in 2004. Now, it has 400 students.   

Why Indian tutors?

• First of all, they offer their service at a very cheap price. Many of us think that America is a very rich country but it is not entirely true. Education is very expensive in USA. Before the birth of a child, his or her parents start saving money for their kid's education. At present, parents have to pay $40 to $100 per hour to the American tutoring companies. On the other hand, Indian tutoring organizations charge less money. For example, Growing star charges $21 to $25 per hour. Tutorvista charges $20 for forty five minutes and unlimited hours for $100.
• Companies like Tutorvista and Growing stars hire teachers specialized in their fields and well experienced. The companies even train the teachers to understand American accents and student jargons. So language is not a big problem.
• Compared to other South Asian countries, India's education system gives more emphasis on English. English is India's second language as well. Among all the South Asian countries, Indian writers have achieved a very good position in the field of English literature.
• Online tutoring for American teachers may not be a very attractive job but it is a full time job for many Indians. Hence, they give more effort.
• Internet is the most important factor in online teaching. Outsourcing is one of major businesses in India; hence, the country already has a very good internet infrastructure. So, the student and teacher can communicate with each other very well.

Pakistan- the future rival of India:
Pakistan is gradually becoming the major rival of India in the field of online tutoring. Like India, Pakistan also has a good education system which emphasize on gaining competency in English. Aside from the education system, Pakistan has another advantage; the phonetic system of Urdu language matches very well with that of the American English. In future, this country would be the major competitor of India.

"Clarity" a serious issue:
Outsourcing businesses are done through internet. Face to face interactions between clients and the company do not happen frequently. For this reason, good will, good image, honesty, and clarity are important factors in this business. The same goes for online tutoring as well. Earlier this month, the court of New York barred the city's Education department from hiring any Indian online tutoring company. The company that the department hired, Socratic Learning Incorporation, run by Indians, concealed the fact that most of its teachers were Indians and it did not do any background checks on the tutors. Education department paid the company 2.4 million dollars. When the department asked for the list of tutors, the company did not pay attention. Later, an investigation conducted by the education department official revealed that most of the teachers were Indians whose backgrounds were not checked. According to Federal law, the teachers are required screened fingerprints and background checks. This incident is a big hit for the Indian companies. Online tutoring is a very new thing and not all people think that it is effective. In a situation like this, such an incident would have a serious effect on the long term. Outsourcing is a very promising sector in India. In future, many new markets would emerge and many more Indians will have jobs in this sector. So, I hope that the Indian government would take proper steps so that other companies who are working do not suffer from such mishaps in future.      

Many of you might be asking why am I supporting India in spite of such mishap. It is true that what has happened is very bad but it is also true that India has the right people with right set of skills required for online tutoring. They can do it well and effectively. Making a generalization about Indian companies from one bad deed is not fair. Don't you agree?   

For this article, I have used recently published news reports on various newspapers and website articles. If you have further enquiries, here is the list of articles:

Why Pak will have more online tutors than India?

NYC stops online tutoring from India

Judge bars from hiring online Indian tutors

New York bans Indian net tutors

Online Tutors Based in India Claimed to Be From Texas

Offshore Online Tutors Seek to Tap Millions in US Government Education Funds

One for the books -- tutoring gets outsourced

Online Tutoring