If you are thinking about starting tuition classes from your home to earn money and support your family, first, you need to understand the meaning of home tuition and the types of home tuition.
What is home tuition?
Home tuition is the academic teaching process that occurs between the student and the tutor either at the tutor’s home or at the student’s home instead of any classroom or coaching class. Alternatively, home tuition is also known as private tuition or personal tuition.
What are the types of home tuition?
Home tuition is of three types.
Type 1: You teach students from your home
In this type of home tuition, you teach students from your home only. You don’t go to many places or students’ homes to teach them. You have to find students and manage everything. (Best option)
Type 2: You teach students at their home
You find students and go to their homes to teach them. This way of teaching is managed by you and the parents of students like time management etc. (Good option)
Type 3: You join or register on online websites or with tutor agencies as a tutor
Joining any tutoring service provider agency as a home tutor or registering as a home tutor on online websites. Practically, you have no control over anything (Worst option)
(Online tuition is just the compulsion and alternative of offline tuition due to covid-19 and will not be in demand forever. Parents and students are now frustrated and irritated with online tuition, and in no case; online tuition will ever replace offline tuition.)
Earning money from teaching students is one of the best and no investment with zero risk business which has been popular and successful for many years, and that is why there is a bright future for any tuition teacher.
There is no need to have any legal registration or licenses to start home tuition in India, and this is why most people choose home tuition to make money from home. However, you have to follow some home tuition rules and regulations to run your tuition class smoothly.
The cutthroat competition in academic career building is a sign of people’s awareness of private education, and this demand will never go out of our lives.
Parents want to give quality education to their kids to compete with others and make a better life.
Every school management receives hundreds of teaching job applications every month and that means that there is a tough competition to get teaching jobs.
As a tuition teacher, you have plenty of opportunities to help parents achieve their goals, and in return, you can make good money.
To make this good money, you need to choose the right option between home tuition and tuition jobs. The right choice will decide how much you will earn in a sustainable way to support your family or become financially independent.
With the above three options, I am sure that now you have a fair idea of home tutor meaning and have no doubt about the question, what is a home tutor?
Each type of home tuition has its advantages and disadvantages from the tutor’s point of view.
Let me brief you on each type of home tuition one by one with some pros and cons.
Type 1: Teaching students from your home only
Being the zero investment and zero risk advantage, it is the most popular type of home tuition. Anyone can start tuition from home and earn a decent income.
Advantages:
No need for high education degrees
You don’t have to have a higher education degree. You can teach according to your skills and your current educational qualifications. You can start with lower-grade students and upgrade as you get confidence.
No experience needed
You don’t need any prior experience to start home tuition. Many housewives and college students take tuition and don’t have any teaching experience, yet they are making good money from home tuition.
Freedom
You will have complete freedom on almost everything. You can decide your timing, subjects, or grade of students to teach, and it is all up to you. There is no restriction on you.
Teach more, earn more
You can teach more students at a time and earn more money. You can explore group tuition also when you have more students. You can have a few batches of tuition at different timing, and in each batch, you can easily teach five to six students. ( If the students are from the same grades, it will be a lot easier for you)
Confidence & comfort
As you are teaching from your home, your confidence level will be high, and you will feel comfortable in teaching, which will help you become a better tutor and deliver quality education.
Time & money-saving
You will save your money and time as you don’t need to travel anywhere to teach students. This is a great advantage as you can utilize your time to teach more students. Here is my another article on the basic materials you will need to start tutoring in case if you want to know more details.
Establish your brand and gain popularity
Through quality teaching and promotion, you can quickly build your brand and become famous in your area, which will help you to get more students by word of mouth publicity.
Earning prediction
You can predict and estimate your earnings when you have your first student. You will have a clear idea of how much you will earn each month.
Growth potential
You can always scale your home tuition business. You can start tuition centers or tuition classes when you have many students, and believe me; there is nothing better than the satisfaction and feeling of being a coaching class owner or tuition classes owner.
Whether it is small or big, you will feel fantastic, and your life will become easy and happy. You will work for yourself, and all your efforts and time will help you grow more and more.
Safety & Security:
If you are a female, you feel very safe as you are at your home only. You don’t need to worry about your personal safety, and you are 100% secure.
Disadvantages:
You need to manage everything
As you are operating tuition from your home, you have to take care of everything. You will have to act as a teacher, manager, and marketer for everything.
You have to arrange basic infrastructure. However, you can do it without any investment, and you don’t need to buy or purchase anything if you can’t afford it initially.
Also read: Can you tutor in your home?
You have to promote yourself and find students
You need to understand the marketing of home tuition and regularly promote yourself on every platform. You have to use offline and online marketing strategies to promote your home tuition. ( we have a complete guide on promoting your home business on this blog)
Type 2: Teaching students at their home
This type of tuition is also home tuition, but instead of your home, you have to go to the student’s home to teach them. Some people believe the home tutor meaning with this option.
Advantages:
High fees or charges
You can charge double to triple fees compared to teaching students at your home because you are teaching one-to-one. That means your focus will be on one student only, and you put your personal attention to that student.
No need for any infrastructure
You don’t need to arrange any infrastructure because you are not teaching at your home. All the infrastructure is arranged by the parents only.
Disadvantages:
Still, you have to find students and promote yourself, as we have discussed in type-1.
Need to be qualified
Sometimes, you have to have higher qualifications & experience to convince parents if you are going to teach higher-grade students.
Less time utilization
As you are going to your student’s home, you have to consider traveling time it will be completely non-productive for you. You cant avoid traveling at any cost.
Low earning
You can’t teach many students at a time, which is the biggest reason you won’t be able to earn more money. Because, if even if you have 3 to 4 students, you have to travel from one place to another and it consumes much of your time.
High expectations
As this is private & personal coaching, your responsibility will be higher, and parents will expect a great outcome. As a private tutor, you have to deliver quality education, and it must reflect in students’ progress cards. Parents will always judge you by the marks their kids get in exams. Sometimes, if you are teaching already weak students, you have to put in extensive effort to get desired results.
No time control
You have to understand that you are going to a student’s home, and it might be possible that parents will decide your tuition timing according to their comfort and convenience.
You are not in complete charge of your time. Sometimes, you have to go in the early morning or late evening also.
Daily feedback
You have to give more time than actual teaching due to daily feedback and discussions after class, even if you don’t want to. (Parents sometimes don’t respect tutors’ time.) You have to be professional, or you may lose your precious time on non-productive things.
You can be fired at any time with or without genuine reason
If parents think that their kids cannot learn from you due to any genuine reason or not, they may discontinue your tutoring services without any notice. Sometimes, students are not so attentive, and they deliberately don’t support you as they don’t like additional teaching, which may cause your tuition loss.
Comfort
Sometimes you feel uncomfortable and can’t maintain discipline as the student might not take you seriously. This is mainly happening with young kids. You can’t be strict with students at their home, and they might not follow your instructions. This situation can be frustrating for any tutor.
No personal branding
You cant grow and build your personal brand as you will not reach too many students. You are restricted to only one or a few students and do not have any exposure to many parents, and you will only get the referral of a few students.
Safety & Security:
You have to travel daily or as per your agreement. If you are female, you have to pay attention to your personal safety and security. Sometimes, higher-grade students can also become your headache.
Type 3: You join or register on online websites or with tutor agencies as a tutor
This type of tuition is mainly based on a third-party dependency. You register yourself as a tutor on some websites or agencies acting as a mediator between you and students.
Advantages:
If the agency or company is genuine, you can earn money as a tutor.
You will get leads (inquiries) from the websites or agencies.
You don’t have to put much effort from your end to search for students.
Disadvantages:
Genuine websites are hard to identify.
Every month many tutor service provider websites come into the market. You cannot decide their authenticity accurately as sometimes, they don’t even have any physical offices.
The majority of tutor service providers are fake (Not all)
I am not talking about every tutor service website or agency, but I must tell you that 99% of such websites or agencies are fake.
They are just grabbing money from you in the name of registration, profile highlight, premium tutor, and many lucrative terms. Without getting your first student, you have to invest, and if you invest your money upfront, you are just gambling and will undoubtedly lose your money.
You have no control over anything
You can never meet with the agency person in real and cant control your earnings and get students. Most time, you will get a call from random parents, and they will most likely negotiate with you. The final tuition fees will be much lower than your expectation.
Qualification is mandatory
You must have certain qualifications to register yourself as a tutor. As per rules by the website or agencies of tutor services, you must carry high academic credentials or degrees. If you can’t fulfil their requirement, they will not give you inquiries or leads. ( However, they will take money from you, as discussed earlier.)
Need of experience
Some agencies or websites give preference to experienced tutors. If you don’t have any experience to showcase your tutoring skills, you will be less likely to get any students.
Unstable income
Your income will not be stable because you are dependent on the websites, and even if you get any student, you will get your fees after deduction of commission. The parent will not pay you, and they will pay to websites, and websites will give you your payments.
Safety & Security:
If you are female, you have to take care of your personal safety and security, as we have already discussed in the previous type of home tuition.
Now, you might have a question which option should you choose?
Based on my personal experience in the private education sector, you should start with your home only. You can read my complete step-by-step guide on how to start tuition at home if you need in-depth information about starting the home tuition business.
Why starting home tuition is better than tuition jobs or tutoring jobs?
The fundamental difference is when you start from your home, it is business, and when you teach by going to other places except for your home, it is a job.
And a private tutor job has no predictable future, and only a few tutors are able to make sufficient money by doing tutoring jobs. You cannot build a brand around yourself and grow it to the next level like your tuition classes or coaching center.
I started home tuition along with my wife a few years ago, and it was a huge success. After that, we took it to the next level, and today, we are a full-fledged tuition class with 150+ students.
In the case of private teaching jobs or tutoring services, you don’t have an option to grow it into a business as you can’t reach more people, and if you can’t reach too many people, you can’t become famous.
You will keep teaching on behalf of third parties like agencies and greedy websites only. You will not have much potential to make more money.
Also Read: How to create attractive and eye-catching home tuition posters for tuition classes for FREE under 30 minutes!
Here is a quick comparison chat between home tuition and tuition jobs to make things clear.
Home tuition vs teaching jobs
So in my view, taking tuition from your home gives you more freedom and higher chances of earning more than being a private tutor.
Online teaching does not fall under home tuition because when you teach someone online, you are always taking a class from a remote and in a nonphysical way.
There are many websites and companies that connect parents and tutors, but always remember that any website or company, or agency doing this business is taking a massive commission from tutors and sometimes from parents.
It will not be a wise decision to join such agencies or websites if you really want to do the tutoring business.
Home tuition teacher is a great profession and career option for anyone. A housewife, a teenager or college student, or a working professional can also choose it as part-time or full-time according to the time slab available.
What type of home tuition do students want? Or what kind of home tuition do parents want?
You need to think, why do parents prefer home tuition? Because in the home tuition, the tutor focuses on a smaller group of students and can teach effectively, and their kids will get personal attention.
Whereas coaching classes, it is as good as the school. The coaching classes teach many students at a time and might not focus on every student in a greater way. This is the reason why parents prefer home tuition or private tuition to coaching classes.
If we talk about students, and which kind of tuition they prefer, you will get mixed opinions from students. The reason is interesting.
Some kids are extroverts and love to explore themselves in groups, whereas some kids are introverts and do not explore themselves in public.
Similarly, kids enjoy and behave naughty when they are in a larger group, and they might not be so much interested in individual teaching or small group teaching, but the fact is, both styles has some advantages and disadvantages from the perspective of a tutor.
As a tutor, you don’t need to worry about these things. Let it be handled by parents only.
Conclusion to your question – What is home tuition?
From this post, you can now define what home tuition is, and if you are going to start your own home tuition business, you can read our detailed guide.
Now it’s your turn.
Which option do you think is perfect for home tuition? Please comment below. I read every comment and reply at the earliest possible.
I wish you the best for your home tuition business.