BENGALURU: Amazon on Thursday said it will shut down its online learning platform ‘Amazon Academy’ in India that it launched early last year. The eCommerce giant launched the platform during the pandemic period when many edtech companies started seeing growth due to online learning.
Formerly called JEE Ready, the platform is for high school students and it offers coaching for competitive exams. An Amazon spokesperson said, “At Amazon, we think big, experiment, and invest in new ideas to delight customers. We continually evaluate the progress and potential of our products and services to deliver customer value and we regularly make adjustments based on those assessments.”
The spokesperson added, “Following an assessment we have made the decision to discontinue Amazon Academy. We are winding down this program in a phased manner to take care of current customers.”
When the platform’s existing batch completes the test preparation module, the firm will slowly discontinue the platform’s operation in a phased manner from August next year. Amazon said its services will never have any impact due to this winding up decision and that customers can access the full course material online till October 2024.
Those who have enrolled in the current academic batch will get their full fee refund from the platform.
This shutdown comes at a time when many edtech firms in India are struggling amid funding winter and macro-economic conditions.
Byju’s recently announced firing of 2,500 staff. Edtech major Unacademy also said it will fire 10% of its workforce, close to 350 employees. Edtech platform Practically laid off many employees a few months ago. Amazon announced 10,000 job cuts.
In Q3 2022, the ecommerce major’s operating income fell to $2.5 billion, compared with $4.9 billion in the year-ago period.
In January last year during the pandemic, the company launched Amazon Academy to help students prepare for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) for entrance to engineering colleges.
The online preparation offered practice routines required for the JEE, through the curated learning material, live lectures and comprehensive assessments in Math, Physics and Chemistry.