Now, Indian teachers teach UK students online

LONDON: In a major initiative, an Indian online private company has launched an on-line tuition service from India and is hoping to have 5,000 British students using it in a year's time.

TutorVista, which claims to be the first Indian company to offer services directly to UK consumers, is backed by Sequoia Capital, the venture capital company that provided early funding for Google and YouTube.

"Till now, private tuition has been the preserve of the wealthy costing up to 30 pounds an hour. The UK parents, particularly NRIs, spend millions of pounds a year for improving their children's grades. TutorVista aims to open up such services to the mass market, charging 50 pounds a month for unlimited online tuition," Krishnan Ganesh, founder and chief executive of the company said while launching the online tuition service here.

The UK launch comes just ahead of the school exams in May and June.

Martin Baker, head of the UK division, said during the trials in the last few months, over 1,000 hours of tuition have been conducted.

TutorVista have earlier been launched in the US 18 months ago and has 2,000 students using its services, but it expects the UK growth to be faster.

The company offers personalised tuition services on a 24-hour basis using online technology such as interactive whiteboards, VoIP and instant messaging.

TutorVista employs 500 tutors across India who are trained to help students in a variety of subjects including maths, science and English. It offers tuition for children from as young as nine through to university-level maths and science students.