General
What is Planck Academy?
Max Planck Academy is a social enterprise startup by Initiative for Malaysian Humanitarian (INSAN). Our main focus is to provide an online marketplace which helps parents and students connect with bright and engaging tutors for both home tutor and online lessons, by providing a platform for tutors to sign up their service and for the parent to search tutor who matches to their needs. The outcome of the transaction here is Planck is able to generate some amount of funding for free tuition project under INSAN.
How does the Planck work?
It is basically a platform where the tutor is able to sign-up for their services and parent are able to hire those available tutors according to their needs. You can say the platform is like an Uber for tutor-student. Once the parent put a request for a tutor, our system will match them with suitable candidates for them to interview and choose.
How much does Planck cost?
The cost of hiring a tutor here is based on the level of the tutor’s experience. We offer THREE ranges of tutor rates starting with RM20 per hour.
Where can I download the app?
For now, Planck does not have any mobile application yet.
Where can I use Planck?
This website is accessible through mobile and web. User, either parent or tutor are able to sign-up for services here and get in touch with our team 24/7.
How to remove my Planck profile?
If you need to remove your Planck account, please email us at academy@insan.org.my or drop us a message through our Contact. Please make sure to include your name and the email address that is linked to your Planck account.
For parents
How do I contact a tutor?
You can contact a tutor directly from their profile. Just write a short message explaining what you need help with and click “Send Message”. The tutor will get back to you as soon as they see your message, usually within a day or so. You can then set up a Free Video Meeting with the tutor in our Online Lesson Space.
Who are the tutors?
All of our tutors have ranging of experience from freshmen at university, fresh graduates to professional in their respective field. They are personally interviewed by a member of our team to ensure they will be able to inspire their students. Coming soon, our system will be able to provide from others who have previously worked with our tutors to help you make your choice; all parents and tutees are invited to leave feedback after each session they have with a tutor.
How do I refer friends to use Planck services?
Invite your friends to sign up to Planck and we’ll contact them to help them get started.
How do we connect with a tutor online?
Getting started is easy. Once you sign-up with us, our team will contact you within a week through phone/email for clarity discussion. From there, we’ll have a clear picture of your expectations, schedule arrangement and your children’s academy background. All these pieces of information will be very useful for our team to match with a few tutor candidates, thus later once the best tutor was selected, we will contact you again for payment arrangement and lesson schedule arrangement.
How do I pay for Planck?
All payments are made through the Planck platform and must be paid for before the first lesson commences.
Why do tutors charge different prices?
Planck provides guidelines so that tutors can set their own rates for their services. The prices reflect their relevant experience and reviews. If you are struggling to find a tutor at a particular price band and would like some advice, just let us know.
For tutors
Are there any qualifications needed for one to sign-up as a tutor?
The tutor application is open to all regardless of their level of education and experience. However, the rate for tutoring services pretty much depends on how the experience and level of education they are in.
Do I need to prepare teaching materials?
Yes, tutors are expected to prepare their teaching materials for each student they signed-up for. However, we also provide some materials such as textbooks, past-year questions and exercises to help tutors and students. Check out our Resources, where you can download those materials.
Where do I have to live to be eligible to sign-up as a tutor?
You can partner with us from almost anywhere as long as you have a stable internet connection for online lessons. However, for home tutoring, you might want to take your travel distance into consideration as well.
Which subjects can I tutor?
Basically, you can tutor any subjects which you prefer from the list that we provide in Sign-up Form. We also ask your study major, as for this might useful when it comes to a relevant subject that requested by the parent and your chance to get a student will be higher.
What do I need to get started for online lessons?
You can run the online lesson space directly from your laptop, desktop or tablet. We believe every tutor will have their own unique approach for online lessons. However, we expect the lesson will be seamless, two-way communications, and real-time. The most basic and free applications that you might want to consider are a combination of Google Hangout, Google Docs and Microsoft Whiteboard. For more details on technical requirements, please refer to our Technical Support.
Can I continue tutoring after I graduate?
Yes! Once you’ve signed up with Planck we’d be delighted for you to continue with us. All we ask is that you ensure that you can keep up with all your commitments made to tutees now that you are a graduate. Please make sure that your personal email address is up to date and that you opt in to receiving notifications to this address.