Battling the perception problem in the EdTech space around the world.

Simple, when you type consumer complaints on BYJUs on google, the first link you get is the below… Good SEO work.

So it is the companies promise to resolve your issue — whether it is related to product or classroom service rendered. There are other companies in the EdTech space, Unacademy — which has received a lot of flak. Some guy comes on the youtube, wants to teach civil services aspirants and starts crowd sourcing teachers to make videos/ courses on various subjects for competitive exams. Ahhh, competitive exams, it is where the hot pakodas sell. And everyone wants to prepare hot pakodas in the society now.

There are international players as well. Starting with the not-for-profit MIT OpenCourseWare and Harvard MOOC, the for-profit organizations like coursera, edx and udemy are not receiving any flak from the public. Even Indians, sitting in India, are ready to pay Rs. 3500 per month, to enroll and complete courses on coursera. These Indians have no complaints (westerners first of all don’t) paying coursera or edx or udemy, but fish out complaints on BYJUs or Unacademy or ExtraMarks. It is because of over promising to consumers on the products and services that are marketed in these organizations.

Over promising the consumers on the service/product and over-promising the investors on high levels of growth in the companing financial years. This had led to consumers expecting more and the company not delivering the thing promised to the public. In facts, 74% of Unacademy’s overall investor money has been raised in 2020 alone. Due to the pandemic and studying and working from home setup, parents want their kids, not to miss out on education and a very high quality one at that and kid’s have a new experience of studying on mobile phones and laptops from now on. The new cultural dawn has begun. These edtech organisations are making use of them.

There have been a lot of speculations raised against the valuation of edtech companies — telling that it is too huge. 11 billion USD for BYJUs and Unacademy at 1.45 billion USD. The public’s view is that it is valued, perhaps 15 times more than it should be valued at! — this is scary for the companies and also for the venture capital investors. If this narrative stretches long, it will be dooms day/months/years for all the investors money and also for the companies and its owners. Lot of law suits will be filed against them in Indian courts and one knows how much time, Indian courts take in resolving issues.

“Justice delayed is justice denied. Similary early justice without proper examining leads to genuiene people going under the bus”

I have been adrent follower of things happening in society, because I love society and people. The case, which is fresh in my memory is IIPM (Indian Institute of Plantation Management) in 2008 and its founder Arindam Choudari, was filed many law suites, because of false promises to the public and looting away public money.

Same guy mentioned above.

I vividly remember, when I used to take the 401M bus from Yeshwantpur to Kengeri, I would pass through an IIPM campus, next to Dr. AIT college. And these IIPMs were there all over India.

I do not want the edtech companies, which have received such huge funding and are working towards such noble vision of “making students fall in love with learning” to “democraticizing education in India”

These are noble causes and needs to be given a huge push. And the edtech leaders needs to give a complusory thought on how they are interacting with the public.

2010s have been great. India has grown big. More Foreign Investments have come in and we have built amazing companies, which have not only served the India market, but have taken the aggressive step to global markets — OYO, Ola, BYJUs, Swiggy etc.

Thanks to the exemplery leaders and visionaries. But I am a little worried only on the edtech front. India is place where the local public respects education. Heck, even the courts of India, has a law, where if your purgure your educational documents during an employment or in government, you can be straight away put to jail. So education is huge subject, in the minds of Indians. So the edtech companies, should not exploit the rever and respect that the public has towards education and make a quick buck out of it. We need to build sustainable companies in the edtech space, to be a Vishwa Guru in education.

BYJUs with 11 billion USD valuation has a beautiful vision. It has furnished in the international space, with WhiteHat Jr in New York. Isn’t white hat, the computer geeks name for a person working on computer security (computer security hackers) and their ad in the public space, which has received a lot of negativity, that an app developed by 6 year old, will get investors fighting for it, infront of the kid’s home and the parents are proud. Ahhh, stop this bullshit.

Osmo, which is another BYJUs companies, operates in the hinterland of USA and is servicing its consumers beautifully. They are not aggressive but smooth in making learning happen in a fun way for all the young toddlers below 12 years of age. Osmo was another acquisition of BYJUs for 120 million USD.

Teaching childern in a fun way — Osmo, USA.

What edtech leaders should do to battle this problem of perception in India?

1. Don’t over promise or over-sell.
2. Let the industry grow steadily with time, don’t overpush quaterly results.
3. Don’t overpromise the investors.
4. Work on technology in making science lab (chem, phy) simulations on screen.
5. Increase on teacher-student and mentor-student interaction.
6. Don’t exploit the education revered society of India. I don’t want an Indian society, which starts hating education. I love education and I don’t want anyone misusing the tool of education for social harm.
7. Put in hours of work in fun ways of learning.
8. Engage the public representatives in learning of the masses.

As they say, a country’s power is in its educated public and research output.

That, knowledge is the greatest wealth.

And knowledge is what liberates a human. Education brings gentleness and awareness in the public. Ignorance is not bliss.

Concludingly.,

To all the edtech leaders in the society

Not a fan of poetry, but this below piece from Faiz Ahmed Faiz ji, which I read somewhere on the internet (just the first stanza), fits the present situation:

ham dekheñge
lāzim hai ki ham bhī dekheñge
vo din ki jis kā va.ada hai
jo lauh-e-azal meñ likhkhā hai

Substandard Translation:

(We’d see boss, we’d see.
We’d eventually see.
The promised day,
Destined in time,
We’d see boss, we’d see.)