In the dead of the night Gowri Radhakrishnan quietly slips out of bed, switches on the lights in her study, logs on her computer, prepares herself a strong cuppa and settles down for a fivehour teaching session. Half way across the globe from her Vishakhapatnam home, it’s a sunny evening in California, when her students are just logging in.

Welcome to the world of “homeshored” teachers. Or in the Indian context, welcome to a prospect of earning good money sitting right at home with the least interference in your daily schedule. An income opportunity that is rapidly catching on in urban households of metros and small towns alike. Even in the days when the outsourcing brouhaha was at its peak, few had imagined that such an interpersonal and “live” function as teaching would have a back office in India. But it has happened and generated income streams for researchers to qualified housewives and even students and part-time workers. Odd working hours hardly seem to be an issue.

So when most of India is in deep sleep, in Bhopal, Nithya Samantha is busy helping her students in the US battle with Chemistry and integrated sciences. “It’s become a habit to wake up at that hour, in fact it’s like a buzzing office the minute I put the headphones on,” she says. The 30-year-old who worked in a chemical industry earlier, now finds teaching online interesting, engaging and remunerative.

In a country where a primary school teacher manages only Rs 7,000 a month as starting salary, online tutoring is a much-awaited boon. For beginners, e-tutoring can comfortably bring in about Rs 10,000 a month. The pay for those teaching specialised subjects is between Rs 14,000 and Rs 20,000 per month on a 6-8 hour shift. Anyone following a full 8-hour teaching schedule can easily make Rs 20,000-25,000 every month.

Because these are one-to-one sessions, there is more bonding and less administrative work compared to what a regular teacher is inevitably burdened with. Which is why 28-year-old Kochi-based Savio D’Cruc considers online teaching a dream job. Says he: “E-tutoring allowed me to focus on one student at a time, unlike a classroom where you have many students with different abilities to engage with.”

What started as a means of supplementing earnings by putting in 10-14 hours a week has now become the chief source of income for many. Flexi hours only adds to the appeal. But for many, educating students abroad gives a different high altogether: “I feel really good when students around the globe want me as their preferred tutor,” says Radhakrishnan.

The online classrooms have strived to minimise compromises on the real “teaching experience”. Etutoring simulates the environment of ordinary learning so well that though faceless, teacher and students interact better than they would probably have in a classroom of 40.

Continuous voice links and use of stylus rather than keyboards help add a personal touch. It was the passion for teaching that motivated Bangalore-based V. Eashwar to give up a lucrative corporate career with L&T and get into full-time teaching about 15 years ago. The advent of online teaching has enhanced his passion even more. Today, at the age of 60, Eashwar finds great joy in teaching calculus to students anywhere in the world. He finds the oneto-one teaching experience especially exhilarating. “E-tutoring makes the interaction with the student very focused and I enjoy it,” he adds.

Says K. Ganesh, chairman, TutorVista, which employs 500 teachers across 23 cities to teach English, Math and Sciences online: “The Americans respect the Indian education system and prefer Indian teachers.” Most e-tutorials employ only experienced teachers or those with a postgraduate specialisation in the subject. A specialisation in mathematics is most sought after.

The potential is immense. Ganesh plans to take TutorVista to students in India and is looking at bringing on board 2,000 teachers by the end of this year. For these service providers, the cost of maintaining a teaching centre is done away with offering better business returns. It is only going to get bigger— more opportunities and more competition.