Tutoring latest industry outsourced to India

[OhioChick]

Nov. 13, 2007

By Shannon Daily
Reporter
The most recent trend in tutoring is coming from India. Along with jobs for telephone operators, financial advisers and medical analysts, jobs for tutors are being outsourced.

Companies like TutorVista, a two-year-old Indian tutoring company, use the Internet to communicate with customers all over the world. Students can receive tutoring in subjects such as English, calculus or economics, as well as help for standardized tests, such as the SAT or GRE.

Online tutoring has been successful, according to an article in The New York Times, but the lack of human contact may have some negative effects, said Margaret Thomson, a lecturer in the curriculum and instruction department.

Dr. Steve Gardner, director of the McBride Center for International Business, agreed on the importance of face-to-face tutoring.

"Certainly for something like tutoring, I think it's going to be something that's going to need to develop a lot," he said. "If you're looking for someone who can explain clearly to you a difficult theory or help you to get through a reasoning process, the kind of relationship you need with a tutor and a student is difficult to establish over a distance."

Thomson said changes in learning styles for different generations may make a difference.

"I think a lot of learning takes place in a social context," Thomson said. "However, this younger generation is much more computer savvy."

Thomson said while her two older sons would study in group settings, her youngest son, who just graduated from high school, studied much more through online study groups.

"I would suspect that today's learners would be much better at learning these things than previous generations would be," she said.

Despite the possibility of success for tutoring at a distance, some would prefer to stay close to home.

"There's enough prep here. I don't know why anyone would want to go anywhere else. The (GRE) is graded by Americans; I would want to be tutored by Americans," Houston senior Kirstin Hartzell said.

With the number of jobs moving across the Pacific Ocean, the possible effect on the economy has been called into question.

"I think it's been a little bit overhyped on its overall impact, especially the U.S. economy," Gardner said. "There are some functions that can be outsourced very well; others can't be outsourced well at all."

The outsourcing of tutoring, he said, will only slightly affect the economy.

India is also under capacity restraints as far as how much work it can take on, "even with the enormous population they have," Gardner said. "If you're outsourcing computer support, it doesn't magically cause these people -- the people that have the technical and education skills needed for the job ­-- to come into existence."

Investors have also been hesitant to invest in these operations, Gardner said. "There is a kind of confidence problem with these kind of investors," he said.

http://www.baylor.edu/lariat/news.php?action=story&story=48129

[Demeter]

1. Like That Will Work

Having done tutoring, I can guarantee that this would work ONLY with highly computer-oriented adult nerds who are not lacking in anything academically. And they wouldn't need that kind of service or expense, either.