Leading British online tutoring company, Third Space Learning, is expanding its
business operations and reach in Sri Lanka through its fully-owned and BOI-approved
Sri Lankan subsidiary, Third Space Global (Pvt) Ltd.
At a conference held at Hotel Suisse in Kandy to mark the launch of their scalable work-from-home program to potential teaching candidates, guests were provided with insight into how Third Space Global (TSG) -alongside parent company Third Space Learning- is building the world’s first global and scalable teaching network of highly trained online tutors supported by progressive technology.
Privy to the vacuum of high-quality tutoring services in the online education space, TSG
was established in 2015 with the intent to provide personalised online teaching for
students in schools across England – with a particular focus on children from
disadvantaged backgrounds.
At the launch event, General Manager and Country Head of TSG Shiyamal Jayathilake
spoke earnestly about the need for Sri Lankan companies to do more to make job
opportunities more accessible across Sri Lanka. As a part of its core mission, TSG
intends to expand the reach of its unparalleled tutoring services to students irrespective
of wealth and social status, and to create rewarding employment opportunities for more
people in Sri Lanka by overcoming resolvable constraints. This has led to a
considerable increase in value-added global business support work for its parent
company.
The innovative e-learning service promotes student success through a student-centred
learning model that supports individualised learning. A stark contrast to traditional
lecture-based pedagogy, this easy-to-access tutoring of the digital age offers high-
quality curriculum aligned to state school standards, bringing to fruition the company’s
commitment to creating positive student outcomes and a growth mindset.
More than five years on, TSG is now 230 employees-strong, having created over 700
jobs through its training programme so far. Since its founding, the company has worked
with 33,708 children across thousands of schools, delivering a total of 331,542 teaching
hours from its cutting-edge online virtual classrooms.
At the event, Bryan Tookey, COO, at Third Space Learning, pointed out the many
reasons Sri Lanka has proven to be a successful and vital operator for the network. “In
addition to the high-quality pool of candidates in the country with good spoken English
skills, Third Space Global -under the direction of our global manager Shiyamal– has
managed to run an operation that is reliable, good at planning and implementation, and
more importantly, one that looks after the welfare of its staff.”
“More generally to other businesses, I would stress that most companies need to make
use of the excellent talent pool, and the ability to get things going quickly here in Sri
Lanka.”
Having previously piloted the work-from-home model in Colombo to great success, TSG
is confident that Kandy too will be quick to accept this opportunity to grow its workforce.
Tutors will now be able to choose what times they are ready to commit to, and with the
help of a robust initial training program -followed by an engaging performance
management program and access to further training material to aid continuous
development-, will be able to remotely conduct lessons from the comfort of their own
homes.
“I strongly believe in the idea of working from home where possible,” said Shiyamal
Jayathilake, General Manager, at TSG. “Not only does it help our staff maintain a good
work-life-health balance, it also makes it possible for us to leverage the skills and
abilities of Sri Lankans across the country.”
“We intend to seek out and provide job opportunities to every source of talent our
country has to offer in this field,” Jayathilake added. “And to consequently make
accessible our specialized brand of high-quality education to more students across the
UK.”
Already a force in the online education community, now by also leading the way in
overcoming the locational and logistical difficulties associated with tutoring, TSG is
seeking to expand even further its fully-credentialed tutor network. The expansion
enables the company to fulfil its social mission of “seeking social change by cultivating a
global community of the most ambitious talent to make effective online teaching more
accessible than ever before.”
