AISA condemns the BYJU’S company’s acts of cheating Indian parents

AISA condemns BYJU’S company’s profiteering of common people’s insecurities and cheating them by misrepresenting their services and products. It has come into public view how the company demotivates the students and their parents and shames them into buying their products and services. Many parents have reported that wards never received the services they were promised, like face to face coaching and counselor services and the company refused to refund them too. Such acts by the company are not only unethical but also expose the grave exploitative practices the company has taken forcing families to take loans as the company played into their insecurities by misguiding them.

State governments and the central government taking refuge under the cover of pandemic, have been refusing to open schools and colleges, thereby making online education the only mode of learning. However, online education has been exclusionary for a large section of Indian students. BYJU’S has used this as an opportunity to expand its predatory and exploitative practices. Using parents’ and child’s insecurities and lack of access to proper schooling due to lockdown in the pandemic, BYJU’s has pushed families into their exploitative marketing strategies.

The whole idea of digital education through corporate entities like BYJU’S is nothing but commodification of education. This form of learning holds nothing for the students as they are snatched away the fundamental right to receive equitable, accessible, and quality education. Such education can’t be achieved without the required attention from teachers, practical learning in labs, engaging in cultural, sports, and other curricular activities. This idea of online education erodes the idea of education as a wholesome growth by understanding the diversity of our societies which gets reflected in classrooms and college campuses.

New Education Policy 2020 recommends online education as a mode of teaching and learning, thereby allowing corporates to take over the education sector. Therefore, what we are seeing with BYJU’S is a direct outcome of Modi government’s policy.

NEP 2020 means to deprive a large section of our people from receiving accessible and quality education and the idea of digital education is dangerous concerning the gross digital divide in our country. COVID-19 has already exposed this divide and how the underprivileged sections of society are to be grossly affected if online education is further promoted.

Students and their parents have alleged:

• Their ward never received the promised services i.e. one-on-on teaching and counselor to assess the child’s progress.

• They were lured into contracts by agents, for which families had to take loans and after they faced issues and reached out to Byju’s they received cold calls and were ignored.

• They were made to believe that heir child would be left behind if they don’t buy the services and their child progress is guaranteed by their product.

• Employees alleged that they had to go through 12-15 hour work shifts regularly and make about 200 calls per day, thereby pressuring families to buy products of the company. (Source: BBC)

AISA demands that BYJU’S company immediately effects the due refunds to concerned parents.

We demand the State and Central governments to act against this alleged fraud and exploitative practices of BYJU’S which have not only cheated the parents but destroyed the lives of children and their families.