SEEING the rapid growth of the online English training industry in China, Huaqingjiayuan-originated 51Talk is aiming to quadruple the number of its home-based Filipino tutors to 8,000 by next year.
The company’s COO and co-founder Shu Ting told the BusinessMirror they plan to hire more electronic-educators (e-Educators) in the Philippines since the population of those who want to learn English in China is now around 20 million to 30 million.
“The market is very huge for us. Because this is a country where many people can speak English very well, 51Talk’s mission is really to create job opportunities for those talents. And that is to teach our Chinese students the English language,” she said.
In 2011, 51Talk, formerly known as Talk China, was established as a premier online “English as a second language” (ESL) school in China by its founders Shu and Huang Jia-jia. Due to unforeseen growth, the team had to re-station to a larger office in Wudaoku in 2012.
Given the increasing number of Chinese either migrating or doing business abroad, the demand for learning the English language has continued to increase that the company decided to outsource teaching in the Philippines. So in 2012, the first 51Talk office here opened in Quezon City with around 20 people only.
After a year, it transferred to a bigger office at Discovery Suites in Mandaluyong City, and later on established another office in Baguio City. Both now serve as recruitment and training hubs, with the latter housing office-based teachers.
Since 51Talk’s inception, it has already outsourced training services from around 2,000 home-based teachers in the Philippines to date. Likewise, it has recruited about 400 full time employees, which is seen to double to 800 next year.
Chinese students, have taken their general English and English for special purpose courses for over a period of six months, one or two years, already reached 50,000 to date. Half of them are working professionals, and the rest are students from primary to college level.
“For now, we want to focus on the Philippine market because based on the experience in the past three years, our Filipino e-Educators are really recognized by our Chinese students,” said Shu, noting that the online ESL training school business model they have is also bridging the students and teachers culturally. “That is very meaningful and valuable for the two countries [considering their sovereign issues over the oil-rich disputed islands in South China Sea].”
As the leading online ESL company in China and the Philippines, 51Talk will continue to provide quality education and career stability to learners and e-Educators alike.
In doing so, the COO and founder revealed that they are allocating a portion of the total capitalization of $12 million they raised for their local operations.
“Branding and marketing in the labor sector is a very big proportion of that investment in Philippines and, then, investment for talent,” Shu stressed. “We are looking at [expanding in] other areas, maybe in Cebu. We’re still studying this option. But if we decide on it, it might be next year.”