Dear Puspita,
1. Why not? This is perhaps just the beginning and the best is yet to come but definite to come sooner than later with so many rural students wanting to join higher education. The prospect that if you are a good teacher, you can teach for your entire language group, sitting at your home or at the studio is well writ on the wall. If you are good at international subjects, then you can teach anybody in the entire world. The boundaries of nations can not bind one any more. (Incidentally, from my room in a remote dingy suburb of Chennai, I teach students from the US, Ireland, England and Canada, and all over from India. Does one need more?)
My second point about sustainability. Well! Sustainable for whom, for the tutors or for the Institutions? It is sustainable for both, the individual as well as the institution. From Chennai, there are at least half a dozen online institutions, which are making crores of rupees worth business. Ask the Tutor Vistas, The Everons and they will tell you, how lucrative online business is. (In fact they may not want to tell you, but that answer itself is the proof of the pudding.)
My next point is – Who is to judge what quality is? It is nobody’s job .It is the student who flies with high grades, who will certify the quality of the education. If one is good at the job, the message will spread like wild fire through social networks, such as Face book, Twitter, Linked in, Xing etc. But if one is bad, then who will care for him, online or no online.
Like water will find it own level, let’s be confirmed that quality will be there at the doorsteps of those who cherish it. The online tutor’s job is to deliver what the student wants, at the time he wants, at the place he wants and at the pace he wants. Rest will all fall in place like a zig-saw puzzle.