MENA-based education agency Yes Atlas has launched a new platform connecting students in the region with instructors in a bid to become the “Airbnb for online teaching”.
Modarby – Arabic for “my instructor” – has recruited more than 2,000 instructors and teachers from more than 5o nationalities in the past two months to teach upwards of 150 subject areas.
The company aims to reach 10,000 instructors by the end of 2020.
“We will work with some educational providers to develop certain products to be sold in the platform”
“What happened recently with Covid-19 made us think about a new business model and how to support students who can’t travel in a different way,” founder and CEO Haitam Giat told The PIE News.
Developed over four months, the platform will seek to help the agency’s students prepare for future in-person education.
“We have already offered the services of Modarby for existing and new students in our study abroad agency,” Giat explained.
“We have started packaging our offers with online language classes and study abroad plans for early 2021. It works perfectly for the students and for us.”
Additionally, the platform offers a “great opportunity” for teachers and professional instructors who lost their job or want to make extra income by teaching online, he continued.
“We all witnessed the big change that Airbnb made for a lot of families around the world and how later existing business enjoyed the collaboration,” Giat explained.
“I believe we can be the Airbnb for online teaching and we will work in the future with some educational providers to develop certain products to be sold in the platform.”
Of the 2,000 recruited instructors, more than 1,200 have been verified by the company to ensure classes are of high quality.
“If the student is not satisfied with the first lesson with [the] instructor/teacher they can ask for a refund and the instructor will not get paid,” Giat said.
“Students will start ranking instructor and in the future, only high ranking instructors will continue to work with us.”
Courses expected to be in high demand include personal skills, English, business development, math, music, sport, social media and international cooking.
With the financial success of Yes Atlas and Findcourse.com over previous years – Yes Atlas announced a move into the Latin America market in 2019 – the latest business will seek to become another feather in the cap of the education company.
“We enjoyed several good years with excellent income which helped us not only to carry the existing businesses through tough times but also to have the courage to spend a large amount of money in developing a new product,” Giat concluded.
