This is from The Independent
When Robert Grabiner tried to find his daughter a tutor to help with her A levels, he was amazed at the cost. He decided to solve the price problem virtually, writes Richard Garner.
It was a kind of Eureka moment for Robert Grabiner after 30 years of working in the City. The 55-year-old father of two was anxiously trawling through the internet trying to find a tutor to help his daughter, Hannah, with her A levels after he had been made redundant – but they all seemed so pricey. Between £30 and £40 an hour seemed to be the norm.
Why not, he thought, start up a tuition service myself? And that’s precisely what he has done – offering a cut-price service of £16 an hour for those who enlist for his mytutor.co.uk service. Using online software that creates a virtual classroom, tutors talk to their students via web cam, share a whiteboard for notes and all sessions can be recorded to watch again.
Grabiner is now part of a worldwide trend that has seen online tuition and courses mushroom over the past couple of years, with students signing on for everything from degree to refresher courses.
The recipe is simple: GCSE and A-level students are tutored by their peers – students at university who may only be three or four years older than the teenagers using his service.
Read the full story on The Independent