Tutoring US math students adds new twist to Indian outsourcing saga

BANGALORE, India, Sunday (AFP) - At night, 22-year-old Indian mathematics research student Gurpreet Singh logs on to the Internet to teach students sitting thousands of kilometers (miles) away in the United States.

Using an electronic pen, his colleague Varinder Kumar highlights areas on his interactive computer screen where US students are making simple mistakes and suggests solutions real time.

India's outsourcing industry, which usually covers services such as software programs, customer management and accounting for companies abroad and at home, has discovered a new market for its talents.

Employing part-timers and staff tutors, outsourcing firms believe they have tapped a potential goldmine in what they call "e-tutoring" or "e-mentoring".

Educomp Datamatics Ltd., where Singh and Kumar work, is one of a small clutch of players in the market and its staff teach mathematics to around 800 students in the United States.

"Six months ago, we thought we would launch a pilot project and see the response," said Shantanu Prakash, chief of Educomp Datamatics, a firm which provides technology solutions such as digital content for the education sector.

"To our surprise, the response was phenomenal. Now we're stretched to capacity and instead of an earlier estimate of having 1,000 students by year-end, we're on course to touch 2,000," Prakash told AFP.

Singh, who has been working with the company since it started e-tutorials six months ago, said he liked the work so much, "I might even take it up as a full-time career."