Online Tutoring Still In Its Infancy: Sylvan Learning CEO Jeff Cohen (Part 4)

SM: Has your online offering increased demand for your tutoring services?

JC: We have also seen growth in pure student demand. Here I refer to students of families who are calling in and saying that they are interested in the Sylvan service but that they would like to take it online. They do not even want to consider an in-center experience. That has to do with access and convenience. It is a function of where people live in relation to the closest Sylvan learning center. It is also dependent on people’s comfort with taking programs like this over the Web. As people become more comfortable with making commercial transactions and communicating over the Web, they realize they can have a high quality experience with a teacher on it as well.

If you sit through one of our Sylvan online lessons, you would hear a very participative conversation going on back and forth between teacher and student. It feels as though they are having a phone conversation. The added benefit is that both teacher and student are looking at a computer screen and sharing information back and forth.

SM: Are your online sessions delivered out of the franchises or a centralized locale?

JC: It is a partnership. That is what we believe to be one of the keys to our success. The franchisee has the relationship, the day-to-day service and operating relationship with the customer and student. Behind the scenes, we at corporate are powering the technology to power the solution.

If you walked into a Sylvan learning center and said that you were interested in math programs for your child, that Sylvan franchisee would take you through the different programs we have to offer. One of those programs would be on online version. If indeed you elect to enroll in the online program, then we execute the operating partnership between Sylvan corporate and the franchisee for whom we are providing the technology behind the scenes.

SM: Where does the teacher come from in that scenario?

JC: One of the great benefits of our program is that the teachers are all over the country. They are Sylvan-trained instructors, and they are state certified instructors. The benefit of being online is that we can have a teacher located anywhere in the country. We are simply making a match between students and teachers at the time that a student wants to engage in their lesson. Teachers can teach on-demand according to their schedule as long as they have access to the technology.

SM: Do the teachers work for Sylvan or for the franchisees?

JC: The in-center learning format is where the teachers work for the franchisees. Today they work for Sylvan corporate for the online learning format. We manage a pool of teachers who are distributed all over the country.

This segment is part 4 in the series : Online Tutoring Still In Its Infancy: Sylvan Learning CEO Jeff Cohen
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