Online platform lets students buy and sell notes

SINGAPORE — Straight-A students — including those in primary school — can now cash in on their study notes and smarts through a new online marketplace that its founders hope will be the “Uber” of bite-sized tuition and help in exam preparations.

Vohga, founded by university lecturer Leo Kee Chye and his former student Jerome Quek, allows students to list and price their study notes. 

The website also allows students to help a peer out with homework, or review essays for a fee. 

Offers or requests to complete assignments on someone else’s behalf, however, are not allowed and will be de-listed. 

Although some educators question the quality of learning it enables, Vohga’s founders say the platform allows students to easily crowdsource tips from peers who are more academically inclined. 

Mr Leo, 45, has invested more than S$10,000 in Vohga so far. Top scorers’ personalised notes are helpful for those who are “at a loss (on) how to study”, said the banking and finance lecturer at three private universities.

“If I can see how a top scorer organised his notes, I’d learn much better,” he said.

His business partner, Mr Quek, is a 25-year-old banking and finance graduate who topped his cohort at Kaplan Higher Education Academy’s University of Essex this year. 

The spark came last November when Mr Quek found out that Mr Leo was running a model General Paper essay website — the now-defunct www.generalpaper.rocks — but was not earning any money from it.

Using his experience selling clothes online, Mr Quek put together a mock-up with features that could monetise the site.

Since its launch in April, Vohga has drawn about 400 sellers. 

At least one transaction is made every two to three days and the duo take a 10-per-cent cut of each successful transaction.

There is no minimum age imposed on users, who can be rated. 

Unlike on some platforms, such as secondhand textbook site Zookal which pays S$10 to students scoring A for each set of notes, Mr Quek said sellers retain ownership of their material. 

They only have to upload their notes once for buyers to download, with no need to meet up or communicate further via email, he said. 

Vohga’s users include a 19-year-old recent graduate of Raffles Junior College, who has earned S$50 so far and declined to be named. Her 15 listings of notes and essays that earned an A grade cover subjects including General Paper and geography, and are priced between S$5 and S$36. 

Due to begin her studies at Britain’s Oxford University next month, she said the platform could enable her to earn some passive income to pay for living expenses.

Quality study notes “cut out a lot of excess and unnecessary info from school-provided notes” and business picks up during the exam period, she said. 

“Students these days may not have much time (with) co-curricular activities, homework, project work, and personal hobbies, et cetera. So any efficiency helps.”

Education experts said the site allows students to make a profit from “peer learning”, but the quality of notes and essays put up for sale could not be vouched for. For now, it is unlikely Vohga will disrupt the tuition industry, they said.

The study notes may contain incorrect information, resulting in buyers being “misguided”, said Dr Timothy Chan, director of  Singapore Institute of Management Global Education’s academic division.

Ms Clarinda Choh, Hwa Chong Institution’s former director of school-based gifted education and centre for scholastic excellence, said the site appears to cater to those who are “urgently” looking to do well in examinations, and assumes that buyers “will be able to understand and digest the notes from the lens of the one who created them”.

“I am wondering how much learning can take place here,” she said.

Vohga should also ensure that sellers do not tout material that infringes on copyrights, added Dr Chan.