The first school to follow a controversial private sector trend is the north London primary by outsourcing maths teaching to India. The ashmount primary in Islington a pilot with half of its year 6 pupils, providing them with the one-to-one tuition using teachers based more than 4,000 miles away on the subcontinent and how the school is planning to expand it to other pupils and year groups. The service is being rolled out around the country and one leading education academic has predicted that it could become mainstream. The idea of moving back-office work or customer service centers to the subcontinent is the commonplace in the private sector.
To be the first time that it has happened in teaching, each of the ashamount pupil is given a headset and logs on the website where they can interact with the tutor while the following their instruction on the screen which works in a similar way to an interactive whiteboard. The service has made a significant difference to the pupils understanding of the subject. They approached to the pilot and started very small with the few pupils but they are quickly realized that it was having a positive impact and increased it so half of their year 6 pupils. They intend to roll it out so the whole of the year 6 is using it and perhaps down to years 4 and 5.
The director of London University Institute of Education, Dylan William said that it is such a system that could work for many more schools but there are also dangers. This will be depending on how good their English, they will also need to understand the cultural conventions of the country. The service which is called Bright Spark Education and it was set up by the UK-based entrepreneur Tom Hoope. Their company employs more than 100 Indian-based tutors full time. This are all maths graduates with a teaching experience and each tutor undergoes security checks.
All of the tutors are trained in the English maths curriculum at the key stage 2,3,4. The service can be tailored to each child as the teacher sees fit and each of the session is supervised in giving the teacher control. They try to keep every pupil with the same tutor, the kids really enjoy it. It is a different way of approaching the subjects with the children who might find it harder to engage with maths.
Outsourcing is a trend nowadays, people outsource every day though some did not know. Most of the people want to be a part of the Business Process Outsourcing, the biggest growing industry in the world.
REFERENCE:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23876751-answer-to-schools-maths-problem-in-india.do
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/sep/10/indian-maths-tutors-for-uk-pupils
http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6057597
