In an age when knowledge commands a premium and time is money, what better way than a person who can teach to do it over long-distance communications and reach more people, do it in an easy way and make more money? And what better way for a student to save on real-world tution fees?
Online tutoring, the business of using telecommunications or the Internet to make teaching and learning convenient, is a bit like a call centre offering support to a customer. But here, the customer is a student and the person at the other end is a qualified teacher imparting skills.
With online portals offering affordable educational support for students, it is a win-win situation for students, their parents as well as teachers working for these portals.
Launched a month ago, Delhi-based Extramarks.com Private Limited is a call centre that caters to NCERT course related queries of students of 6th to 12th standard students. Apart from students, parents and teachers can also register for free and access the community and share their queries and concerns with other members. Unlike a typical call centre in which phoning in is the normal way of getting queries resolved, at Extramarks a pupil can post her queries or doubts and get them answered by expert teachers.
Extramarks uses a points-based system for students and teachers earn on the basis of what they do on its website. For instance, asking a query from a teacher costs you 30 points whereas you earn 5 points if you log in to the website daily.
One can also buy 300 points for Rs 99, which means you can get 10 questions solved for Rs 100. It is a bit like asking an astrologer questions and paying according to the number of queries.
The same number of questions solved with a tutor at home would take more than an hour, costing almost eight-nine times the money. Extramarks.com's future plans include introducing virtual classrooms using white board technology within the next three months and starting their services in the US and UK markets by next six months. "We are also creating our own content," Rohit Jain, CEO, Extramarks.com told Hindustan Times.
Leading education content provider company Educomp Solutions, which is a stock market listed company, currently serves over 3.6 million users across India, US and Singapore. It launched its online learning initiative through a portal, www.mathguru.com in July last year. The portal also addresses students studying in standards 6 to 12 and helps them solve their maths-related queries. However, the payment model involves an annual subscription of Rs 2,023.
"We have 15,000 registered users on Mathguru and are expecting the number to reach 25,000 by March 2008," Shantanu Prakash, CEO, Educomp India Private Limited told Hindustan Times.
While Mathguru is specific for one subject, students looking for guidance on solving queries related to physics, chemistry, general science and French and competitive examinations such as the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), IIT's entrance exam or medical college entrance exams have www.learninghour.com. Here, a six-month course for medical entrance costs Rs 7,500. For other subjects, the cost varies between Rs 1,000, Rs 1,500 or Rs 2,500 per month for 10 sessions (of one hour each) per subject depending on whether a student wants to study in a group of three, two or individually.
Online tutoring, the business of using telecommunications or the Internet to make teaching and learning convenient, is a bit like a call centre offering support to a customer. But here, the customer is a student and the person at the other end is a qualified teacher imparting skills.
With online portals offering affordable educational support for students, it is a win-win situation for students, their parents as well as teachers working for these portals.
Launched a month ago, Delhi-based Extramarks.com Private Limited is a call centre that caters to NCERT course related queries of students of 6th to 12th standard students. Apart from students, parents and teachers can also register for free and access the community and share their queries and concerns with other members. Unlike a typical call centre in which phoning in is the normal way of getting queries resolved, at Extramarks a pupil can post her queries or doubts and get them answered by expert teachers.
Extramarks uses a points-based system for students and teachers earn on the basis of what they do on its website. For instance, asking a query from a teacher costs you 30 points whereas you earn 5 points if you log in to the website daily.
One can also buy 300 points for Rs 99, which means you can get 10 questions solved for Rs 100. It is a bit like asking an astrologer questions and paying according to the number of queries.
The same number of questions solved with a tutor at home would take more than an hour, costing almost eight-nine times the money. Extramarks.com's future plans include introducing virtual classrooms using white board technology within the next three months and starting their services in the US and UK markets by next six months. "We are also creating our own content," Rohit Jain, CEO, Extramarks.com told Hindustan Times.
Leading education content provider company Educomp Solutions, which is a stock market listed company, currently serves over 3.6 million users across India, US and Singapore. It launched its online learning initiative through a portal, www.mathguru.com in July last year. The portal also addresses students studying in standards 6 to 12 and helps them solve their maths-related queries. However, the payment model involves an annual subscription of Rs 2,023.
"We have 15,000 registered users on Mathguru and are expecting the number to reach 25,000 by March 2008," Shantanu Prakash, CEO, Educomp India Private Limited told Hindustan Times.
While Mathguru is specific for one subject, students looking for guidance on solving queries related to physics, chemistry, general science and French and competitive examinations such as the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), IIT's entrance exam or medical college entrance exams have www.learninghour.com. Here, a six-month course for medical entrance costs Rs 7,500. For other subjects, the cost varies between Rs 1,000, Rs 1,500 or Rs 2,500 per month for 10 sessions (of one hour each) per subject depending on whether a student wants to study in a group of three, two or individually.
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