Mathematics outsourced to India, Now

Mathematics outsourced to India, Now

A school in UK has become the first to outsource its teaching to India where around 100 tutors from Punjab will give one-to-one lessons to 11-year olds who have fallen behind in Math.

Ashmount Primary in north London has become the first school to avail this service called Bright Spark Education, started by set up by UK-based entrepreneur Tom Hooper.

The 6th standard pupils of the school are provided with a headset while they log on to a website to have an on screen interaction with the teacher. It costs the school £12 per hour per pupil compared with about £40 for private tutors in the capital.

The tutors, all math graduates with teaching experience are employed on a full time basis and each one undergoes security checks.

"I was a tutor myself to make a bit of extra money when I was at university and after I graduated... But paying for additional tuition can be very expensive, in London you can be spending up to £40 an hour," Hooper said.

"It just seemed to make sense when I thought of providing live learning online, which could be flexible and engaging."

All tutors are trained in English math curriculum and the service can be tailored to each child as the teacher sees fit. The teachers are paid £7 an hour.

Ashmount assistant head teacher Rebecca Stacey told the Times Educational supplement that the pupils' understanding of the subject has improved significantly after using the service.

"We try to keep every pupil with the same tutor. The kids really enjoy it. It is a different way of approaching the subject with children who might find it harder to engage with math," Stacey told the newspaper.

She added that the school was approached by the agency to use this service on a pilot-project basis but after receiving the positive response from the students the school is likely to roll it out to the 4th and 5the standard students.

Although outsourcing office work in the subcontinent by private sector is not new but this experimentation in teaching field is believed to have been carried out for first time.

However, director of London University's Institute of Education Dylan William cautioned that such a system had its own dangers. "It will depend on how good their (tutors) English is... They will also need to understand cultural conventions of this country," he said.

There is a shortage of Math tutors in UK. Math graduates are offered 5000 pounds for postgraduate teacher training courses. While UK had some 5,980 math graduates last year in India their number was around 690,000.

Source: IAN