Indian Tutors Teach British Children Online
Although India was once a part of the British Empire, Britain now looks to India for educational help. Indian tutors are helping British children learn maths over high-speed Internet connections.
One of the first schools to adopt such a form of teaching is Ashmount Primary School in London. When pupils get ready for their maths lesson they sit in front of a computer, put on their headphones , log on to the Internet and listen to the instructions of their tutors , who are thousands of miles away in India. With the help of an interactive whiteboard teachers and pupils can write and read information at the same time.
One of the advantages of such a system is that especially weaker pupils get the professional help they need. The teacher focuses on the individual needs of every single child. In most cases students enjoy working on computers more than just doing classroom work with textbooks.
In Britain there are not enough maths teachers for schools. An assistant teacher would cost a primary school like Ashmount over 30,000 pounds. The headmaster says online tutoring is not only more effective, but cheaper as well.
In India a tutoring agency in the Punjab has hired a hundred maths graduates and is instructing them on how to teach British pupils online. They are paid 7 pounds an hour, which is three times the normal wages in that region. The agency charges British students 12 pounds an hour for tutoring services, about half the amount they would pay for a tutor in Britain.
Not everyone is in favour of online tutoring. As a representative of Britain’s trade union for teachers suggests, there is no emotional relationship between teachers and pupils. Parents don’t seem to mind. They are pleased with the results and happy seeing their children get better at maths.
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Words
- adopt = take on, accept
- advantage = good side
- affordable = to have enough money to buy or pay for something
- although = while
- assistant = person who helps teachers in class
- British Empire = group of countries that were once governed by Great Britain
- charge = to ask a person for money for something you are selling them
- curriculum = the subjects that are taught in school or the things that are studied in a certain subject
- downside = bad side, disadvantage
- effective = more helpful , better
- enthusiastic = to really enjoy or like something
- especially = above all
- expand = grow
- former = to have had a certain position before
- focus = concentrate
- graduate = a person who has completed university
- heartland = centre
- high-speed = very fast
- high standard = very good
- hire = to give someone work for a certain time
- in favour of = to be for something
- instruction = what someone tells you to do
- knitwear = to make clothes out of wool
- log on = to start using a computer network
- mind = care
- needs = what a person must have in order to succeed
- outsourcing = when you use people from other countries to do a job that you should do
- primary school = school for five to eleven-year olds in Great Britain
- relationship = connection, link
- service = the work that you offer
- supplement = add to
- trade union = organization that represents workers of a certain branch and helps them when they have trouble with their bosses
- tutor = teacher
- tutoring agency = organization that offers the help of online teachers
- vital = very important
- wage = the money that you earn for the work that you do
- weak = not very good
- whiteboard = a white space on a computer screen on which people can work from computers all over the world