Fredericton’s ‘Tutor On Time’ Gives Students Affordable Help On Deadline
FREDERICTON – In the third year of his engineering degree at UNB, Moneeb Kassimi was sitting with his friends and classmates in the library agonizing over projects, tests, and what felt like an endless stream of deadlines.
Tutors were hard to find, their availability limited, and when they were, they were at a rate outside of a student budget.
Faced with increased stress and a lack of accessible support, Kassimi and his friends Irtiza Kahn, Roy McIntosh, and Minh Nguyen knew something needed to change.
“We were good, high-performing students so we would have other students come to us last second asking about different questions or assignments or certain concepts on the test,” said Kassimi, who is also the start-up’s CEO. “It really made us wonder why is this happening? Why is everyone coming to us, instead of going to a TA, or getting a tutor?”
By early 2021, the group co-founded Tutor on Time, an online platform where students can easily find tutors for any subject with a fast turnaround time and at a reasonable rate.
“It’s just a reality of being in university and especially in certain disciplines like engineering where you’re overloaded, you have six, seven courses in the term,” said Kassimi. “Unfortunately, sometimes the only possibility is to prepare for a test or exam, you know, the night before or two days before, simply because your schedule doesn’t allow you to do otherwise.”
Kassimi and the team have spent the year testing and refining the business, including a three-month stint with the Summer Institute out of UNB. They performed a beta run in 2021’s winter term that they’re hoping to expand to more students come the fall.
“I would say that this term is almost like our first real launch,” Kassimi said. “We had the time over the summer to prepare services and further develop the website, so I feel that this will be our first serious attempt at rolling out our services in a way that’s accessible to all students.”
Interested tutors are able to apply to the service on their website, where they go through a vetting process with the team. Kassimi says the rate for Tutor On Time’s tutors is $25 an hour, while the tutors are compensated at $18 an hour.
For Kassimi and his team, one of the major roadblocks has been eliminating perceptions of tutoring and making tutoring inviting to all students, regardless of class performance.
“There’s a negative connotation to getting tutoring. That is something we didn’t realize so we’re focused on creating services in a way that eliminates that stigma and provides tutoring to students of all levels, meaning that even if you’re already performing very well, it’s a way to maintain that performance,” he said.
Tutor On Time will be available to UNB students beginning in the fall semester, but Kassimi says the team has plans to expand to high schools and other campuses in the future.
“I see Tutor on Time becoming a staple in the education industry, becoming a force in the support educational support sector. I see it becoming a thing that all students use, regardless of whether they’re struggling or they’re just want to maintain their grades,” he said.
“I see it becoming an affordable tool, a way that students can support their education and make sure that they’re always on the right track without breaking the bank.”
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