WHILE onsite job opportunities keep shrinking in the following months, another chance is opening for Filipinos who have to work from home.
Since February, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced K-12 school districts to close, and sent more than 290 million children and youth home, data from UNESCO showed. Learning online has then become the only choice. This increase in demand has boosted online education platforms like 51Talk in China.
Jack Huang, 51Talk founder and chief executive officer, sees the outbreak as a turning point in the online education industry.
“With the exploding demand for English-speaking teachers in China, there is probably never been a better time than right now to teach English online.” Huang said, adding they still need 30,000 more teachers by 2020.
“The pandemic has put thousands of jobs at risk, and this has been particularly hard for the Philippines’ single mothers,” Sophia, a single mother of two commented.
“51Talk brings light to our lives. As English is my mother tongue, the only thing I need to be an online English teacher is a reliable internet connection and a laptop,” she said.
