Many parents are seeing the importance of online
home tutoring services because it is easy to navigate through and it is a reliable way of pairing students with tutors that suit them in the best ways possible. Tutors also benefit from this contemporary system of marketing their services as they have the advantage of reaching a greater audience as opposed to a door-to-door system. In a nutshell, online home tutoring services have succeeded in creating a conducive teaching and learning environment for teachers and students respectively. A pioneer of this digitally optimized system of home tutoring in Nigeria is
PrepClass,
a hub for students and teachers to connect under a controlled and well-regulated system.
Born Out Of A Desire To Transform The Nigerian Educational System
After the Joint Administration Matriculation Board (JAMB) introduced the Computer-Based Test (CBT) concept in 2013, two graduates from the Electrical Electronics Engineering
department at Unilag
, Chukwuwezam Obanor and
Olumide Ogunlana, saw the goldmine in creating an online platform that would help students prepare for local exams across Nigeria. Thus, they founded
PrepClass.com in 2013 initially to fulfill this exact purpose.
However, as time went on they discovered it would be more meaningful to modify the website into a platform where students could have a one-on-one contact with compatible tutors by connecting with them.
Today, PrepClass.com is one of Nigeria’s premier home tutoring services with a huge pool of over 16,000 tutors registered under several subject categories. Being an innovative startup, prepclass.com has received funding from Africa Angels Network and Venture Garden Group, and it also shares investors with the likes of
Andela, Suregift, and a few other notable brands. In 2014, PrepClass was mentioned by FastCompany as
one of the most innovative companies in Africa; in 2016, its founders also got featured as
one of the 30 entrepreneurs to look out for under 30 .
Innovating The Educational Space
Tutor
PrepClass.com takes intending
tutors who come to the site to apply through a thorough screening system; they do this in order to ensure that students get the best tutoring experience as they are promised. With this intent, tutors are carefully scrutinized based on their expertise, years of experience, qualification, and location. Tutors are also invited for physical interviews during which they take written tests, personality tests and engage in a teaching practice session; every tutor is also expected to provide two guarantors. Once tutors have passed the screening process, they are assigned to students who match their qualifications and specifications. With this system in place, PrepClass focuses on filtering the best tutors from the ones who just want a paycheck and this is what makes them outstanding.
Clients
Clients and parents who log in on PrepClass.com to hire tutors are expected to fill out a form with all necessary information possible that will ensure they are matched with suitable tutors. PrepClass then assigns tutors to clients based on the information they provide and subjects they wish to learn; there are slots for several categories of subjects all tailored to suit the ages and levels of potential students.
Facts About Prepclass.com
- In February 2014, PrepClasswon the Tech Battlefield competition which brought them more fame and equipped them with funds.
- PrepClass is now home to over 22,000 registered tutors and has over 5,000 clients on its database.
- The platform first started as a test prep website but after the founders realized parents were more interested in hiring physical tutors for their children, as opposed to online test preps, they welcomed the idea of a tutoring service and as at 2015 they had served about 14,000 hours in billable tutoring hours, paying tutors around 6 dollars per hour.
- PrepClass raised over $100,000 through a seed fundraise primarily by Africa Angels Network and Venture Gardens Group.
