Moldy Peaches

Educational tutoring has become a popular option for many families. The growth has been fuelled in the past decade by "helicopter" or ultra paranoid parents, who want that extra edge for John or Sally. It is estimated that tutoring is now a multi-billion business worldwide. Now comes word that American students are receiving online tutoring from firms with call centres based in India.

Despite some educators' worries that offshore tutors might not meet certification requirements, one U.S. company already has conducted a pilot program with Indian tutors. Career Launcher piloted a tutoring program last year with eSylvan, a division of Baltimore-based Educate Inc., through Educate's retail operations. There were difficulties getting teacher certifications forced them to pull out of the pilot, but Career Launcher is developing its own program and hopes to launch sessions directly through schools this year.

Indian tutors work, on average, for the equivalent of about $200 monthly, putting in six to eight hours a day, five to six days a week. That means they earn the equivalent of about a $1.40 an hour, compared with upward of $20 to $30 an hour for many U.S. tutors.

Public schools in the United States last year spent about $218 million on tutoring with an anticipated price tag of $500 million this year, says J. Mark Jackson, a senior analyst at Eduventures, a Boston market research company specializing in education.

Outsourcing tutoring is perfectly feasible, however, it removes the local element of education and introduces a series of unknowns. Tutoring is a largely unregulated and fragmented environment - which has some potentially bad outcomes for the consumer. Desperate parents often resort to desperate measures and most would be smart to pause and shop around - locally.

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