The age of the tutor agency is now over

The age of the tutor agency is now over

Our next exam blog post is about the demise of a traditional education business model and the growth of another.

The age of Coronavirus has driven a horse and cart through the model of the traditional tutoring agency . Where a stable of like minded, similar spirited tutors work together to deliver tutorials to pupils, paid for by parents. The parents usually choose the agency because of the price they are prepared to pay for the tuition along with the reputation of the agency. Caveat: The Exam House was born out of Bright Young Things. That also gave birth to Tutorcruncher.

The traditional challenge the tutoring agency overcame was to guarantee quality of the tutors and providing a relationship point with the parent. Making sure the quality is high along with the suitability of the tutor while also where possible keeping payments as prompt as possible to the tutor. Software even popped up as the industry modernised to support the multi level relationship specifically for the tutor agency such as tutorcruncher, taking a small fee each invoice. While maintaining admin and management of the often complex paperwork that comes with tutoring agencies multi level relationships. 

In the age of coronavirus the agency has either had to pivot using their goodwill  into a single point of delivery of education, irrespective of the tutor, and focus on the specific exam or course., like a GCSE or A level.

The alternative is to face  being dis intermediated from the online listing services that promote the individual tutor as a point of promotion, reducing the need of the individual tutors to be part of the agency or collective. While most home based tutorials being done via the computer is far easier to manage the payments and schedules with the correct intervention.

Above all this is the rise of the asian model of mega star tutors who use zoom while charging per lesson for being part of the zoom lesson with the specific exam success as the end goal.. A pay and play model that has been proposed by Jordan Peterson.

When we come out of this virus lock down it is doubtful there will be many traditional agencies left. They would have had to pivoted to exams and courses or have been puffed out by the change of consumer habits.