BPO services in education require updating, transcription and collection of information related to student progress records, application cycle, fees collection and enrolment which are essentially call centre, data entry and scanning services.With Internet cutting the geographical barriers, E-Learning is becoming a buzz word with school students. E-tutoring is a part of E-Learning wherein students get help and guidance from On-line tutors sitting miles away from them. On-line tutors offer online assistance and help them with Mathematics, Science and other subjects for school students of all standards/grades. The students get experienced teachers to help them with their homework, projects and assignments.US planned to spend USD 941 billion on education in 2012, out of which 252.1 billion would be spent on tertiary education. It is estimated that in US, Universities spend 4%-5% of their total budget spent on outsourcing or IT enabling their administrative functions. Out of this about 15% is spent on BPO related activities. This results in creation of $2 billion worth of BPO opportunities in the US education sector alone. Further, this opportunity is expected to grow by 15%-20% annually as educational institutes’ increase their BPO spend. The recent budget cuts in UK have forced the Government to reduce its spending on the education sector by 70%.
The institutions, especially the higher education universities are looking to outsource their administrative functions increasingly to countries like India and Philippines to be able to dedicate the diminished funds towards the purpose of imparting knowledge rather than back office. For example, renowned universities like Stanford University and New York University have outsourced their record management system and data entry to India to enable faster retrieval and standardization of student information.Given the strength of Uganda’s education system, regionally, in the areas of ICT and management, there lies a significant opportunity in course content design and development for these subjects. Once the optical fibre is fully functional and last miles are laid out, Uganda can also look at hosting and deploying educational services like e-learning and e- tutorial online for the regional market.