JOIN US Tired of being unable to concentrate in a crowded classroom or comprehend what is being taught? Online or e-tuition sites, complete with lucidly illustrated examples and tests, are gaining in popularity with students able to study in their homes and at a time of their choice.
Websites like Futor, Meritnation and Extramarks offer children online interactive study material and tools to work with at the click of the mouse. “Schools do not have a personalised teaching approach. The same concepts are repeated, without considering a child's individual learning capacity. Sometimes a child does not understand a concept and the doubt goes unattended,” Manish Chaturvedi, CEO, Futor said.
“With such interactive teaching tools you are definitely ahead of a conventional tutor who does not have such methods at his disposal. Even the cost works out to be cheaper,” he said. “We generally conduct 10-12 classes per month, with cost ranging from Rs 1,500 to Rs 1,800,” Chaturvedi added.
Pavan Chauhan, co-founder and Managing Director, Meritnation.com, said that online teaching sites are now proving popular with students living in smaller towns and cities by providing them the best possible learning aids at an affordable price.
Chauhan said that a sizable portion of the content on Meritnation is available for free. The annual packages range from Rs 2,500 to Rs 10,000 (for an advanced Test Prep course for competitive exams like the joint entrance examination for engineering colleges IIT-JEE).
“You can adjust your study time to your convenience. You are also saved the bother of having to travel to tuition classes, which also saves on time. Besides, such tutorials come without any teacher bias and peer pressure,” Sukanya Upadhyaya, a Class 11 student said.
But Sumeet Kumar, a teacher at Jayesh Tutorials, feels that a student learning alone cannot be fruitful. “I am not in favour of classrooms where a large number of students are taught using a microphone. But neither do I believe that a child learns better when taught alone.”
"When studying in a group, students sometimes tend to learn more through the questions asked by fellow mates. An ideal teaching group should comprise six to eight students," said Kumar.