Ashmount Primary School and three other British state schools have finally found the way to make math class endurable. One day out of every week, sixth-year students take their seats in front of the school computers and log on to Brightspark Education. From there, they go to the “white board” and start their math lesson with their tutor in India.
Brightspark employs 100 math graduates and former math teachers in Punjab, India, and trains them for a month on the British curriculum.
Union members in NASUWT, the largest British teacher’s union, fear that Brightspark will threaten teaching jobs in an economy where school funding is already tight and the government is looking to cut any unnecessary spending from the national budget.
Brightspark’s founder, Tom Hooper, wants to quail the teacher’s fears. He assures them that Brightspark is in no way meant to replace teachers, and that it is only meant to supplement the students’ education.
Mr. Hooper wants to use the teachers provided by Brightspark as tutors, and the price he charges is almost half that of a private tutor in Britain.
Though this is the first operation of its kind in Britain, things like it have been used by the USA to help travelling families keep their children on the same learning schedule as schools in the US.
