Bharat Tutors is changing the way students and tutors connect in India
Supplemental educational services, such as tutoring, can be a great way for a student to overcome their struggle with a particular subject or area of learning. In general, it increases mastery of academic skills, improves confidence, decreases drop out rates and students can benefit from instruction tailored to their specific learning styles and needs. When Vivek Singh, founder of BharatTutors.com, found out that Indian local tuition-bureaus were charging hefty amounts of money, he came up with the idea to build an online platform especially focused on connecting students and tutors online around the country.
It all started in 2005. Vivek was working at a company based in New Delhi and planned to use his evenings teaching students, as his father did before teaching government officers, farmers and officials. “There were two main ways to get the teaching jobs during those days: first was to register with tuition bureaus, pay them ridiculous money for registration and then work on share earning basis. Second was to search classifieds in local newspaper and contact who were looking for tutors”, he says. Five years later, the Bharat Tutors idea emerged in Vivek’s mind as a way to fill the gap of lacking Indian websites only focused on teaching jobs and connecting students and tutors with no interference of a third party.
“I asked myself ‘Why should one join Bharat Tutors? Now there are plenty of sites claiming to search for tutors and students online, so what is unique here?’. Because Bharat Tutors is specially crafted for students and tutors, you can discover most of the things about them by looking at their profile. Unlike other classified ads, we do not cater other categories of services “. Students and tutors create their profiles with personal information and tutoring needs and the website enables the user to search on it as per priority and needs. Plus, all services at Bharat Tutors are free, although it’s the tutor’s and student’s responsibility to discuss and finalize their study and payments plans, be that online tutoring, in-class tutoring or one-on-one tutoring.
With an IT background, Vivek build the website himself with his own skills and financial inputs in 2010. Being new to the creative applications of website technologies and unaware of best practices of tutoring industry, he initially struggled in getting a good rank on search engines, designing the easiest navigation for the website, and maintaining a clean community. Now, the goal is to reach 30.000 registered members until 2015 – 15.000 are already there – and then extend the services to five countries: USA, Canada, Australia, United Kingdom and Malaysia.
Within the next two years, the plan is to integrate to the website tools for online tutoring service. Future plans also includes resources through advertisement by various tutorial institutions; raising a base money of Rs 10 lakh through donations; developing a self-sustaining financial system; introduction of BharatTutors.net providing online tutoring platform including whiteboard for interactive sessions and learning management systems; establishing mid-level coordinating team of five paid workers with internet facilities by the end of 2015.
Why should I try online tutoring?
Online tutoring services are more convenient than hiring an actual tutor to come to your home. It saves travel time and gas money, in addition students can access help whenever they need, rather than working around the tutor’s schedule. With online tutoring services, it is also possible to spend just a few minutes brushing up for an upcoming test or do in-depth studying for a subject you are struggling in. Curriculum flexibility is greater with online tutoring services, while there is an option of researching to find what best fit the student’s needs. Feedback and scoring is available with online tutoring as well.
On the other hand, with online tutoring services students may not get the same attention as with an actual tutor. Also, some people may find it hard to keep constant focus on the screen without getting distracted by emails, IM’s or Facebook. It has also the additional disadvantage that both student and tutor require access to computer equipment and reliable, fast internet connection, as well as webcam and microphone if they intend to take face-to-face tutoring, which is not easily affordable and limited to a small group of people.
As the online tutoring model is growing and turned to be and up come trend, there are several companies emerging in the Indian market, as Tutor India, My Private Tutor and Learning Hour, which offer similar services and interfaces.
To learn more about Bharat Tutors, click here