U.S. homework outsourced as ‘e-tutoring’ grows A report about a company, TutorVista, based in Bangalore India, that offers on-line tutoring to students. They started in the US about a year ago and have just expanded to the UK.
I’m not sure what I think about it – the headline that CNET have used “homework outsourced” initially made me think that it was more akin to the essay buying phenomenon that has lead, among other things, to the “scrapping” of Maths coursework (and discussion about doing other coursework in a supervised setting, rather than at home). However, this doesn’t seem to be that, rather it’s tutoring. The report seems to cover the aspects of helping children – and making up for shortfalls in the school. I think that a significant part of me would rather see schools improving – so that children can be children in the evenings and holidays – not having to work. However, if the schools aren’t able to deliver for whatever reason, then this solution does *seem* to have benefits – primarily the cost.
They claim that all teachers are qualified and all can teach to (US) standard tests. It’s possible to have an hour’s free tutoring, though that does seem quite US centric at present.
I’m just not sure …