How effective is in-person tutoring in the age of AI

Remember the days when parents would ask around the neighbourhood to find the best tuition teacher? Some kids studied one-on-one, others in batches at a teacher’s place. Cut to 2025, and students like Souritra Roy haven’t stepped into a physical tuition class in over two years. A first-year Instrumentation and Electronics Engineering student at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, Roy cracked the JEE Mains with a stunning 99 percentile, courtesy online tutorials (he didn’t take online tuitions).

Let’s accept it. The Covid-19, for all its chaos, made online learning the new normal. Tuition classes have changed big time. What we have now is a hybrid setup that mixes the old-school way of teaching with smart digital tools. “I didn’t attend any physical tuition classes to crack the JEE. I relied on courses from Unacademy and other online educational platforms. Even when I was in Class XII, I realised towards the end of the course that I could study on my own with the help of online tutorials. So, even though I initially attended physical tuition classes, I later turned to online tutorials for support,” said Roy, who also believes that online education is less time-consuming and allows for easy teacher replacement, unlike in traditional setups.

This increasing reliance on easily available, low-cost, and adaptive online tools, is transforming the Indian education sector. But that doesn’t mean tuition teachers are going out of business. It’s just that students now have another option: hybrid classrooms. These offer flexibility, giving students access to recorded lectures and extra study material online.

A 2024 KPMG and Google India Education Report mentioned that a significant portion (67%) of Indian students between 14 and 21 utilise online learning platforms for supplementary education and exam preparation. This is a far cry from the traditional model where private tuitions and coaching institutes were the unquestioned pillars of supplementary education. The Indian online education industry per se is expected to rise to USD 10 billion by 2025, says a 2023 report by ResearchAndMarkets.com, based on a compound annual growth rate of 20-25%. Undeniably, this boom is being driven by rising internet penetration, the universal spread of low-cost smartphones and exponential growth of online educational channels.

The motives for this virtual migration are manifold. Affordability is a big selling point, with several platforms providing free content or cheap subscription plans versus the sometimes exorbitant charges of individual tutors. Convenience is also an important one. Students can study at anytime, anywhere, on their own schedule, pausing, rewinding, and replaying content as desired. The abundance of content, ranging from basic concepts to sophisticated subject matter, in combination with provocative gamification strategies, further enriches the e-learning process.

Swagata Chatterjee, an experienced teacher of Economics and Mathematics from Hooghly’s Uttarpara, doesn’t mince words when she says that students still prefer offline tuition. “Some students benefit more from being approached in a face-to-face manner,” she said. She also pointed out the widespread impact of technology. “We need to be technologically driven and understand how to be market-driven. I’ve embraced technology since the Covid-19 era,” she added.

For many, especially parents, the personal presence of a tutor remains invaluable. “I get the point of online platforms. But personal presence counts much more. The one-to-one interaction and problem-solving really benefit students, at least in my son’s case,” said Rupayan Nandi, father of Sounak, a Class XI student. Likewise, Sayantika Chakraborty, a third-year BCom student, prefers personal tuition. “During Covid-19, like everyone else, I, too, turned to digital platforms. But I’ve noticed that I learn more easily when there’s a private tutor present,” she explained.

Another student, Mahi Roy of St. Xavier’s University, Kolkata, is an independent learner. “I haven’t attended any private tuitions in the past year. Of course, the study material offered in class helps me a lot, and for better perspective, I use various AI apps for learning,” she said.

The future of Indian education seems to be a hybrid format. As tutors like Chatterjee and students like Roy shift into digital mode, the growing fusion of AI and customised learning guarantees an even more custom-made learning experience. Though the appeal of in-person tutoring remains for many, we all know that today’s generation of students is increasingly learning from their screens.