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NIKHIL MANGHNANI
The tutoring industry is one of the striving fields in the world where the global Private Tutoring Market is currently valued at US$173. 4 Billion in the year 2020 and is expected to reach US$279. 3 Billion by the Year 2027.
CHALLENGES FACED DUE TO PANDEMIC IN TUTION INDUSTRY
The pandemic has led to changes in this industry where online teaching has started to take a significant part. Online education has provided several opportunities and increased the scope of the growth for this industry. However, at the same time, there are a few issues that are faced in this industry. Do you wonder what problems are encountered in this industry? If you wonder so, then this article will help you to get a clearer picture of it.
GENERAL ISSUES
Firstly, starting a tutoring business has few issues where one is finding the premise to tutor, which is difficult and expensive to buy or rent a place to tutor. Then finding students initially is challenging. It needs to market itself to find students, which is also expensive and highly competitive. It is also competing with teachers from schools who provide the tuition. Moreover, such competition makes it essential to have good quality tutors, which is also challenging to find and expensive. It also requires a lot of time commitment, as said by a US-based tutor firm founder, Sara Desantis of tutorme, said that 'I tutor roughly 30-50 hours a week. Since a lot of students need help in the evenings, it's easy for me to hop on and grab a session with a student whenever I'm available.'
EFFECT OF THE PANDEMIC ON TUTORING FIRMS
Moreover, the economic environment also plays a massive role in starting up a business as the pandemic occurred, which raised several issues like a change in teaching style as said by Sara Desantis, who said that, 'Since I began tutoring right before COVID-19 began, I have seen the before-and-after of the tutoring experience. I am tutoring more students now, and many of them come into a session panicked about their studies. I can just tell. Some of my students thrown into the online world are anxiety-ridden and have clearly made the recent decision to give online tutoring a try—which I think is smart on their part' hence this shows the the pandemic has created need to change the teaching style to remain successful which a few tutor firms have struggled to.
In the case of India, there has been a fall in the popularity of tuition, as shown in the image below and by this quote, "Parents have the perception that private schools perform better, even if they do not," said Wilma Wadhwa, the director of nonprofit Pratham's ASER Centre. So when incomes rise, parents may prefer to move children to private schools, and reliance on tuition may drop. As we can see from the image below, several states show a fall in private tuition demand.
One of the reasons private tuition is becoming less popular is that it is becoming more expensive as well since the cost of private coaching has risen at a rate of around 6% a year—to over ₹3,400 per year in rural areas and ₹7,500 in urban parts.
PARADIGM SHIFT
Even tutoring firms already in the market face several issues, especially since the pandemic happened, which resulted in a shift to online teaching. Moreover, as a whole, there's also the problem of lack of good teachers. According to the expert of this field, Amit Gupta, Co-founder and CEO at NCR Eduservices, an Education Outsourcing Company, had said that "Online tutoring businesses lack good teachers, trainers and subject experts to meet the demand of their learners, i.e., millions in different parts of the world. The challenge of demand for quality tutors exceeding supply is huge for online tutoring businesses."
Online teaching has caused several issues like technical issues are faced like connection issues due to the internet where -' A staggering 84% of teachers reported facing challenges in delivering education digitally with close to half the teachers facing issues related to the internet both signal issues and data expenses.' It has also led to increasing need of having good technology, which is expensive were here in India, 'Two out of every five teachers lack the necessary devices to deliver education digitally' and In states like UP and Chhattisgarh where 80% and 67% of teachers respectively lack the requisite devices to deliver education online. Moreover, with such a radical shift to an online way of teaching, it needs to educate teachers, but 'less than 20% of teachers reported receiving orientation on delivering education digitally while in Bihar and Jharkhand, the figure was less than 5%.'
Therefore, as we have seen, although the industry is projected to grow, it will come with challenges and unforeseen events like pandemics can affect the industry growth.
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