Hard Lessons

As the child rights commission pulls up BYJU’S for its alleged exploitative sales practices, the edtech giant has proposed an action plan to establish fairness. But will that be enough?

- BINU PAUL

BYJU'S, THE WORLD'S most-valued edtech company, has been looking for a sense of calm throughout 2022. And just when it seemed like it was entering a phase of relative calm after it conducted mass layoffs to focus on capital-efficient growth, the Bengaluru-based firm found itself being pulled up by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) over alleged hard-selling and mis-selling of its courses to students. The child rights body summoned BYJU’S after it took cognizance of a report that alleged that the edtech major was pushing households to take heavy debts and exploiting students.

Appearing before the commission, BYJU’S denied the allegations and said it follows a triple-layered audit mechanism to ensure that its sales staff doesn’t pursue customers who are uninterested in or unable to pay for its products.

However, NCPCR says that the company has submitted that it will conduct an affordability test to ensure that its courses are not sold to customers whose income is below ₹25,000 a month, and that it will pay back the fees collected from parents who would have failed the affordability test.

Industry watchers say the submission does little to address the allegations against the company. For instance, how does the company plan to conduct the affordability test, or what tools, formats, platforms and data would be used to determine the income status of a customer, they ask, adding that there are no answers.