FIRST factories moved there, then call centres; now private tuition for British schoolchildren is to be made available over the internet from India.

Two firms on the subcontinent are to begin offering British pupils aged eight to 17 one-to-one lessons with a private tutor from early next year.

The companies, which already tutor hundreds of American children on the internet, will initially specialise in maths, although help in science subjects will follow. “The UK is a very big market and we will target it next year,” said Shantanu Prakash, chief executive of Educomp Datamatics, one of the companies involved.

“Our area is maths and we have found that universally across the world we have seen that maths is a huge problem.

“The UK doesn’t have many maths teachers; on the other hand in India we have intellectual talent and capital available for tutoring.”

Private tuition for schoolchildren in Britain has boomed in recent years, with many parents seeing it as an alternative to going the whole hog and sending their children to private schools.

Tony Blair hired a private tutor to help his eldest son Euan through his A-levels — an example of middle-class insecurity and lack of faith in the education system that has helped create a market worth an estimated £200m a year.

But as demand has risen, finding a tutor in many areas has grown difficult and prices have jumped to between £20 and £30 an hour.

In India, by contrast, there is a glut of well-educated maths and science graduates, allowing the two Indian companies — both based in Delhi — to charge just £15 an hour. Educomp has already begun offering tuition to children in America, where it has 600 students. The second company called Career Launcher has tutored 800 children there.

Students can either use the services on an ad hoc basis when they need help with a particular problem, or book a series of tutorials that mirror their school curriculum.

Mylène Curtis, managing director of Fleet Tutors, one of Britain’s biggest education agencies, said that even with lower charges competition from India would not pose a significant threat.

“Parents, even our foreign clients, demand teachers who are educated in the UK and are knowledgeable and experienced in the national curriculum,” she said. “Online is an effective complement, but face-to-face has been around since the time of Socrates.”

Gary Lawson, 41, a financial consultant from Sevenoaks, Kent, is looking for tutoring for his children — Sophie, 9, Isobel, 7, and Jacob, 5 — to help them pass the 11-plus and get a place in a grammar school. “My kids are already very IT literate and doing something across a computer would be quite effective,” he said. “I also want some track record: that’s my only concern about going down the offshore route.”

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