I have been allocated a complete newbie to perl (and development by first impressions) to my remote (offshore) team

He is keen, bright but lacking in development knowledge, he can quote the syntax of perl (and probably other languages) but has no practical understanding of how to implement it. My tact so far has been to set him some tasks in perl (build a login, MD5 the password. etc)

He seems to be struggling with staying in control of his programs, I dont have time to spend much time (I have vnc'd and try and explain), and the rest of the team is busy on high priority tasks but willing to support. What I would like is to set him some tasks to just get on with, see what he can do... hes not getting paid so hes here to learn.. Should I just bite the bullet and say I just dont have time ? or does anyone have a better way of dealing with the situation ?

If I had the time I would love to train a bright person how to do things the way I learnt the hard way... but when your under pressure to deliver what do you do ?

Can fellow monks suggest some low maintence learning problems I can set him ?