For hundreds of years, India practised the Gurukul system of education where we had a tutor teaching the pupils in Gurukul. Slowly we moved on to the traditional method of “chalk-and-talk” and now comes the digital method of learning. Schools are increasingly adopting digital teaching solutions to engage with a generation of students with the help of PlayStations and iPads.
Indian education market is estimated to be worth Rs 5.9 trillion. The current size of private coaching in India is about $23.7 billion and is likely to touch $40 billion by 2015, says Assocham. With nearly half the population of India below the age of 25 years and increasing penetration of Internet and mobile devices in this demographic, the growth of online education in India is undeniable.
Sensing a market opportunity, Eduwizards, a firm that specialises in online education, providing online testing and online tutoring solutions worldwide since 2006, is trying to make inroads into the Indian education market. “More and more parents are willing to pay different prices and better prices for an excellent tutor and the tutors also want to charge more if they are better,” said Ashish Sirohi, founder of Eduwizards.
The idea of having a tutor all by yourself shall make a student feel confident. In India, the formal education system is not enough to provide all required academic support to every child. Lately, private tutoring has evolved as a driving force which has overcome school inadequacies to a great extent. In other words we can say that tutoring especially private works as a shadow of the formal educational system. It goes hand in hand with school level education, and holds great value in its own way.
In education, tutoring is more important because it is a skill more important than driving. “In fact, this is a market place model we are running where you search by your subject, you see all the tutors, their profiles and education qualifications and the ratings.
Reviews can only be given to the system by a student’s parent who has taken a session with the tutor,” Sirohi said.
At Eduwizards, students can find affordable tutors available round the clock for instant/immediate help for popular subjects. Eduwizards also gives students the option to view their favourite tutor’s working hours and always work with the same tutor. The simple reasoning is that in the brick-and-mortar world, this is the model that works—have the same tutor who fully knows the student’s level, strength, and weaknesses. To help a student find the tutor that suits him/her best, the company offers free trial sessions with different tutors.
Eduwizards has started its operations in Delhi from April for both home and online. “We are giving parents and students in India the opportunity to choose the tutor online along with the payment details and after that they can choose if they want home or online tutoring. This is the market based model we are doing and we keep a 15-20% commission from the tutor. It is 20% in the beginning and as the tutor does more hours we get it down to 15% and the advantage of going through us, he informed.
Eduwizards started with only 3-4 employees in US in 2007 and only for online. In India, the company has a bigger staff and has started doing both home and online tutoring. Over the years, the company has 12,000 tutors who have signed up from India.
Education marketplaces of various types have sprung up all over the world. However, on the Internet there are no country barriers and the world is the marketplace. In an era where private tuition is almost becoming compulsory, Eduwizards believes its online tutoring can really help in delivering productive results in terms of student’s grades and performance in exams.