Local tutors have long been the force behind supplemental education that has powered Indian students’ dreams, be it for college prep, standardized tests, public sector examinations or post graduate admission tests. The image of ‘Sharma-ji’ riding on his scooter and teaching a reluctant kid at his home might be straight out of Bollywood, but the real life equivalent of it is more that of an individual teacher or one at a coaching institute teaching students in a proper classroom, following a well-defined curriculum and lesson plan.

Local tutors, however, have been under siege over the years. Ubiquitous internet connectivity combined with cloud computing resources have changed the education landscape. The pioneer in this was Khan Academy, which made a huge volume of content available, a lot of which was taught by Salman Khan himself, absolutely for free. India soon became ground zero for ed-tech globally and large-scale players like Byju’s, Unacademy and Vedantu took tutoring online and brought to bear an incredible amount of tech and content. As a result, a student could now log-on and listen to recorded or live lessons from tutors anywhere in the country, using multi-media content that further enhanced the learning experience. Covid was a massive tailwind as in-person teaching of any kind became impractical and further led to students flocking to online learning.

Now with the world getting to a post-pandemic routine, and face to face meetings again taking place, realization is setting in on what the future of education should be. ‘Zoom fatigue’ is real, constantly staring at a screen is not sustainable over any extended period of time. A student’s ability to absorb and retain concepts via an entirely online experience is limited. Students and teachers are both understanding the importance of in-person interactions and the critical role of trust between them.

Yet, there is no going back to the pre-pandemic days. Parents and students alike realize that online has tremendous benefits. It reduces the need for students to attend every live class and enables them to review lessons and practice at home at their own convenience. Top quality content that can be streamed on demand provides for a comprehensive learning experience.

At Prime, we believe the future of education is hybrid, where students leverage the convenience and choice of online with the trust and experience of in-person learning. Local teachers bring a deep understanding of the context in which their students learn. They understand the hopes and aspirations of the parents and students in the community and have developed a reputation and a personal brand over many years, sometimes decades. There are 2M teachers in India who teach over 100M students and these tutors are going to be central to delivering successful educational outcomes.

But, these tutors need to be armed with both the ability to deliver hybrid high quality instruction, and access to high quality supplemental content. In order for local tutors to continue to attract students, they will need to be tech enabled so that their content is available online in live and recorded formats as required. In addition, they will need to match the content repository of the likes of Byju’s and Unacademy, such that any supplemental content that their students need is available to them.

Winuall provides an integrated solution for local tutors to address these requirements. With WinuAll, teachers are able to select best in class content from publishers across the country into a curated content store for their students. Each store is customized by teachers for their students and they can simply buy or subscribe to the recommended content without worrying about searching the net for latest test prep resources. In addition, WinUall tech enables their institutes, whereby teachers can provide recorded and live on line lessons as required. Local Tutors are now able to give regular in-person classes, record additional explanatory videos that students can review at home, and add live coaching where necessary.

WinUall is growing by leaps and bounds with teachers across the country. What surprised us was the speed with which local tutors adopted technology and digitized and enhanced their offerings. Students are showing a high preference for local tutors who have a strong brand in their community. Online teaching giants - Byjus, Unacademy and Vedantu - can be unaffordable for a vast majority of students but local tutors fill in the sweet spot of affordable and personalized coaching.

 

Ashwini and Saurabh have worked with local tutors right from their college days and bring a visceral understanding of the tutor's pain points. The effectiveness and trust of in-person meetings cannot be replaced by online interactions. The best educators will combine the best of online with in-person teaching to deliver optimal outcomes. We are delighted to partner with WinUall as they aim to become the trusted partner to local tutors across the country in this journey.