Posts tagged school dropout rate

I frequently get asked about my motivation behind starting an online tutoring service that uses live video to connect tutors and students. It made me think that I need to do a better job at communicating the “WHY” for Wisekangaroo. 

I firmly believe that education is the foundation upon which societies build their future. Good education prepares young individuals to grow into responsible citizens thus creating a better community. Today more than ever before, tertiary education is considered a reliable predictor of workplace success and a college master’s degree is worth $1.3 million more in lifetime earnings than a high school diploma. 

With so many factors favoring education, it is alarming to see that school drop out rates have been rising for girls as well as boys across Australia. Every year in Australia around 50,000 young people aged from 15 to 19 drop out of education and training and are unemployed. Student attrition in Australia’s universities comes at a cost of more than $1.4 billion a year. In addition to dollar losses, there are also human costs. A student who drops out often sees the decision as indicative of failure and this can have long-lasting negative psychological and emotional costs. There may also be costs to students’ families in terms of the investments made in travel, accommodation, textbooks and other study materials.

A number of reasons contribute to student attrition from schools and universities, most of which are outside the control of the student themselves. These include

• Money,
• Learning environment at school,
• Family situation, and
• The community they live in.

Moreover, the mass education system in schools puts slow learners at a disadvantage and once a student starts to lag in class it is very difficult to catch up with the rest of the class.

Schools try to do their best to help all students and to retain those that may drop out due to the above issues but can only do so much with limited resources and budget cuts. This brings the focus on parents. In most urban families these days both parents go to work and find it difficult to spend personal one-on-one time educating their children. The problem is compounded for disadvantaged and underprivileged children in aboriginal families, families of refugees, single parent households and those living in isolated outer suburbs in Australia. It is no coincidence that children with learning disabilities and those belonging to disadvantaged families have the highest rates of school drop outs.

This has led to personal one-on-one tutors and group tutoring classes playing a major role in helping students grasp key concepts outside of schools so that they can keep up with the rest of their class. Although tutors are of great help to students, the tutoring industry in general is quite disorganized in terms of quality and trustworthiness of tutors, price per hour for a subject and availability and location of tutors in a particular suburb. Besides this, the in-person tuition delivery model itself is inefficient, expensive and inadequate for the current needs of students.

• In-person tutoring requires both the student and tutors to be physically co-located which restricts tutors and students to their local areas.   
• Precious time and money is wasted in travelling for both tutors as well as students.
• There are genuine safety concerns in scheduling tutoring sessions too early or too late in the day.
• Students benefit the most if they receive tutoring help when they are stuck on a problem which could be at any time of the day and at any place - home or school.  This means that they need a tutor who can be accessible anytime and anywhere.

Wisekangaroo’s online tutoring marketplace can help solve all the above problems. At Wisekangaroo, our mission is to reshape the education industry by harnessing the knowledge, skills and experience of the best teachers in the world and making it accessible to students from anywhere and at all times.

Wisekangaroo is a tutoring marketplace which means that students can compare several tutors based on their qualifications, hourly rates and past reviews before hiring them. Wisekangaroo’s online tutors offer personal one-on-one tutoring using live online video thus making the entire tutoring process convenient and efficient for both students and their tutors. No travel, no hassles. All you need is a laptop, web cam and microphone. 

We hope that students who can afford a tutor will save time and money in finding  online tutors on Wisekangaroo. We also realize that for every student who can afford a tutor there are 10 others who cannot. These students are the most vulnerable and most likely to drop out from schools and universities. In the coming days we will be launching a free online tutoring program that will connect volunteer tutors from around the world with underprivileged and disadvantaged students for unlimited free one-on-one tutoring sessions. With this program we hope to reach hundreds of disadvantaged and underprivileged students from remote areas who are in need of help but cannot afford a tutor because of monetary problems or lack of good tutors in their local areas. We hope to raise awareness about the issue of school drop outs and help to retain students in school by providing them free tutoring help in any subjects whenever they want, where ever they want.  

If you would like to get involved as a volunteer tutor please fill out our volunteer as an online tutor form or write to us at support@wisekangaroo.com with your name and contact details and we will get back to you as soon as possible. Also if you know a disadvantaged student who may need a tutor but cannot afford one please let us know too.

Atul Pandey
Founder Wisekangaroo