The level of tutoring near me has always been very high and I used 3 tutors during my college degree, all of whom were of great help to me. In the last 8 months however, this has been a service which has changed greatly, much like so many aspects of our lives. I do a little bit of tutoring myself and have actually gotten to know quite a few of the local tutors in my area. I have had a chat with a number of those tutors over the last couple of weeks and it has become very clear indeed just how big the change has been in what they do.
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Less Students
Whilst there were a lot of students looking to still use the services of a tutor, as they continued their studies, there were many who recognized that spending money on a tutor in the current climate wasn’t a shrewd idea. This of course greatly helped those students from a financial standpoint, but it was of course detrimental to the tutors themselves. Less students sadly means less income.
The Switch To Virtual
For so many tutors around here, the coffee shop is their classroom, and in some cases the property of their student. This however was something which had to change very quickly once the lockdown came, and of course all of the tutors began to use the likes of Skype and Zoom to give their tutorials over the internet. This is not the ideal solution for many tutors however, who – perhaps in an old school fashion, actually enjoy being in the presence of their students. With this change also came a lower price for students, as tutors could no longer justify their costings which of course would have included overheads. Now that there is less to spend, they of course had to lower costs.
More Competition
Before the pandemic hit, there was a clear division between tutors and teachers or lecturers, once everything closed up however, this line became very blurry. Many teachers and lecturers who couldn’t get into the school or the university to teach, began to look at ways of making some extra cash on the side, through tutoring online. This ramped up the competition which tutors faced for more students.
Short Term Students
Although there was an increase in demand for tutors as students looked for support during lockdown, this became a short term arrangement. Once schools and colleges opened back up again, many students recognized that they wouldn’t need the tuition and so stopped the classes, this meant that so many tutors who thought they could count on the extra income, were all of a sudden forced to go looking for students again in order to supplement what they had lost.
The pandemic has impacted everyone’s life, every career and every service, those within the tutoring profession, have had to handle things the same way as everyone else, and that is through making necessary changes to how they operate.
