Parents juggling work and home schooling may be able to resolve some of their challenges though a business called Tutor Me, started by university students.
The business is the brainchild of Rabia Viljoen and Nastasja van Wyk, who then got business savvy Avin Lodewyk on board.
Viljoen and Van Wyk were both university students in 2019 and started chatting about how they could create a service and a business to assist other students who needed tutoring and mentoring.
Viljoen said: “ I was in my final year of a Masters Degree when Nastasja and I got to speaking and we realised that with my personal experience of tutoring ... and knowing what it was like to be a student, we could start a business.”
She added: “I have a background in tutoring, I tutored for the university and privately. I always would think of different ways and avenues that I could start a business, but I never really got around to an actual business idea that suited me and made sense to me.”
Van Wyk said she also had a hankering to start a business and help others: “I was a tutor at the University of the Western Cape. I was a statistics tutor, I did stats in my first year, so I was a tutor in my second year and the rest of my undergrad.”
When the lockdown began in March, the women decided it was the opportune time to get their business off the ground.
Viljoen said: “A month into lockdown we approached Avin, as the two of us didn’t really have the sort of business acumen that we needed to establish the business. That's the skill set that Avin brought. We had much more time on our hands because of the lockdown, and we had more time to focus on the business.”
Tutor Me was born, and although the co-founders would have preferred to consult with pupils face to face when first meeting them, they have since made the most of what was possible and are sticking to the social distancing guidelines.
Van Wyk said: “It is at the moment online, so when we started the business during lockdown, we unfortunately couldn’t offer face-to-face services. That's when we came up with the idea of developing the online tutoring business.”
Tutor Me offers a comprehensive assessment of the pupil’s needs as well as building a profile of the pupil.
Viljoen said: “We initially do an assessment. After the student fills out the application form we do an assessment to determine what their learning style is. Our entire framework is based on knowing that every student learns differently, so the student could be more visually inclined or auditory inclined. We use that, together with their academic needs, and also their personality.”
Tutor Me offers tutoring services as well as mentoring and other academic support, including proof-reading and editing of assignments, essays and dissertations.
Van Wyk said: “We are tutors for all grades; some of our students are in primary school and high school, but we also do have tertiary-level tutoring. For the most part, though, we do focus on the Grade 1 to12s.”
Tutor Me matches pupils with tutors who are qualified to assist and guide pupils to success. Viljoen said that less than a year into operation they had already seen the fruits of their labour, which is mostly down to the pupils' hard work. She said one pupil from a disadvantaged background, who just needed some personal attention with his school work, was one of their most heart-warming success stories to date.
“He went from never getting above 65% to getting a 94% as a final Maths mark at the end of the year. We are giving him the platform to unlock his potential,” said Viljoen.
In the past few months, the women have noticed the growing need of pupils who cannot afford tutoring, but are desperate for academic assistance. Van Wyk said assisting these pupils was part of their future business plans.
“We are a business and we have tutors that need to be paid. It broke our hearts to say no to these students who don’t have financial access. We started a community outreach programme called EVOLVE. We are at the beginning stages of this and working on getting together a team of tutors who are willing to sacrifice their time as volunteers to be able to help these students who don’t have the additional academic support.”