The offices of Educomp Datamatics in Delhi looks like any other Indian call center, apart from one crucial fact: Its staff are math tutors offering support to students in the US. Welcome to the latest "big thing" in outsourcing.
American schools desperate to improve their students' math grades are hiring Indian companies who provide tutors at a fraction of the cost of American tutors. These tutors sit in New Delhi, Mumbai or Bangalore helping youngsters with their math homework or going over already-learnt concepts so that they do not lose ground during the holidays.
"The world over, parents have a problem helping kids with math homework," says Shantanu Prakash, CEO of Educomp Datamatics.
"The kids need help. It's painful. So if they can go to their computer and get someone to guide them and help them, it's a huge relief."
Tutors either speak using headphones or use a whiteboard and digital pencil so that one side can see what the other is writing.
Others -- such as Educom Datamatics tutors -- do not offer a voice service. Here, the tutor and student communicate only by writing on the whiteboard as they go through the stages of solving a problem.
This new form of outsourcing makes sense for a simple reason. Indians generally tend to be good at math which explains why so many of them write software. And India did, after all, invent the zero (it reached European civilization much later through the Arabs).
American schoolchildren, in contrast, tend to do badly in math. According to US statistics, about 40 per cent of 13-14 year-old American students fail to meet the grade in math and, as it happens, English.
Because of the Bush Administration's 2002 No Child Left Behind Act, if schools do not improve their pass percentages, they lose state funding. This has led some schools to turn to American tuition companies for help. Known as Supplemental Education Service providers, some of the larger ones such as Tutors.com, Smart Thinking and eSylvan, can charge up to US$40 an hour. Educomp Datamatics in India, on the other hand, charges only US$20-25 an hour.
It's a developing industry and to date only four or five Indian companies provide online tutors but of the ones which are up and running all are targeting the US.
"It's just so vast," says Satya Narayanan, chairman of New Delhi-based Career Launcher. "We're just warming up. There is a huge dearth of tutors in the US, UK, and Middle East, too."
Narayanan said, "Students want help and don't care where it comes from. They think it's quite funky to be sitting in California being taught by a math teacher in India."
"The image Americans have of Indians is that they are smart, brainy people and so they think the educational system in India must be good. So no one has a problem accepting Indian tutors," says Prakash.
BACKLASH: The National Party quit its decades-long partnership with the Liberal Party after their election loss to center-left Labor, which won a historic third term Australia’s National Party has split from its conservative coalition partner of more than 60 years, the Liberal Party, citing policy differences over renewable energy and after a resounding loss at a national election this month. “Its time to have a break,” Nationals leader David Littleproud told reporters yesterday. The split shows the pressure on Australia’s conservative parties after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor party won a historic second term in the May 3 election, powered by a voter backlash against US President Donald Trump’s policies. Under the long-standing partnership in state and federal politics, the Liberal and National coalition had shared power
FRAUD ALLEGED: The leader of an opposition alliance made allegations of electoral irregularities and called for a protest in Tirana as European leaders are to meet Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama’s Socialist Party scored a large victory in parliamentary elections, securing him his fourth term, official results showed late on Tuesday. The Socialist Party won 52.1 percent of the vote on Sunday compared with 34.2 percent for an alliance of opposition parties led by his main rival Sali Berisha, according to results released by the Albanian Central Election Commission. Diaspora votes have yet to be counted, but according to initial results, Rama was also leading there. According to projections, the Socialist Party could have more lawmakers than in 2021 elections. At the time, it won 74 seats in the
A Croatian town has come up with a novel solution to solve the issue of working parents when there are no public childcare spaces available: pay grandparents to do it. Samobor, near the capital, Zagreb, has become the first in the country to run a “Grandmother-Grandfather Service,” which pays 360 euros (US$400) a month per child. The scheme allows grandparents to top up their pension, but the authorities also hope it will boost family ties and tackle social isolation as the population ages. “The benefits are multiple,” Samobor Mayor Petra Skrobot told reporters. “Pensions are rather low and for parents it is sometimes
CONTROVERSY: During the performance of Israel’s entrant Yuval Raphael’s song ‘New Day Will Rise,’ loud whistles were heard and two people tried to get on stage Austria’s JJ yesterday won the Eurovision Song Contest, with his operatic song Wasted Love triumphing at the world’s biggest live music television event. After votes from national juries around Europe and viewers from across the continent and beyond, JJ gave Austria its first victory since bearded drag performer Conchita Wurst’s 2014 triumph. After the nail-biting drama as the votes were revealed running into yesterday morning, Austria finished with 436 points, ahead of Israel — whose participation drew protests — on 357 and Estonia on 356. “Thank you to you, Europe, for making my dreams come true,” 24-year-old countertenor JJ, whose