Are you planning to implement the same module in India?
We are also looking at this opportunity in India. It's a huge market comprising 449 million students who we can target. The model that we have started here is hybrid one with a mix of both online and offline tutoring.
Looking at the technology infrastructure in India we realised online tutoring model will not work in India. Ninety per cent of Indians cannot afford computers and don't have access to the Internet backbone. Hence we need to have a different model for India.
In the November of 2007 we acquired Edurite and thought of providing a hybrid version of TutorVista.com. Edurite has developed multi-media rich content -- lessons, animations, practicals etc -- for 100 per cent of Indian curriculum being taught today in ICSE, CBSE schools and colleges.
We are providing this rich content to a large number of schools -- government-run, privately-run schools, kendriya vidyalayas, and also international schools in India -- which can run on a computer provided by us thereby eliminating the need of a qualified teacher.
For rural schools we provide this computer called the mobile PC on a trolley along with an UPS (uninterrupted power supply) and a projector (they don't provide monitors because villagers steal it taking it to be televisions) in a lock-and-key system. The subsidised cost of this entire setup is Rs 100,000 so that schools in the rural areas can easily afford it.
If a school wants to teach physics to Class IX (or for that matter any subject till Class XII) the mobile PC contains all lessons and experiments and multi-media rich content for the purpose. This eliminates the purpose of having a laboratory which otherwise would require a huge capital and maintenance costs.
Similarly, to study circulation of blood flow you don't have to dissect a frog or a rat. The mobile PC has all these elements in 3D animation. However, the charge for this mobile PC is higher for schools in metros and Tier I, II and III towns in India. We are using a mix of technology and human presence as a great leveller as far as educating millions of people in rural India is concerned.
Today more than 600 schools across India are using this mobile PC technology to impart education.
Image: A mobile PC that TutorVista.com uses to teach students in rural areas
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