BENGALURU: Thousands of edtech firm Byju’s tutors and students are clueless about their future and so are their parents who paid huge money for their children as tuition fees.
It’s been close to five months since employees received their salaries and no online classes are being conducted for about two months now. Sources told this newspaper that all offline centres (more than 200) have been closed and apart from a few online classes, majority of classes are not happening.
When Deepika Patel, 33, from Chhattisgarh, joined Byju’s as a Biology tutor, the firm was considered to be the leading and most valuable start-up. She was recruited to teach in Raipur centre and her package was about Rs 6.70 lakh. Within a few months, she started heading the centre, which had 120 students.
“Everything was going well until January. From February this year, we started facing salary delays. It was never paid on time. Since July, we have not received salaries, and it is difficult for tutors like me to run their families,” Patel said, adding the worst part is parents are calling us and asking for updates as no online classes are being conducted from September. Byju’s used to charge anywhere between Rs 60,000 and Rs 1.50 lakh (depending on grades) as tuition fees per annum. In May, it dropped fee, but started grappling with multiple legal cases.
Another tutor from Mumbai citing anonymity said he has been receiving threatening calls from parents as no classes are happening. “All are from middle-class backgrounds and some have raised loans to pay tuition fees and their EMIs are being deducted,” the tutor said, adding students have lost hope. The number of students studied in these centres is unknown as Byju’s has so far not shared tuition centre numbers.
The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), Bengaluru, in July directed the initiation of Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP) under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code against the firm and appointed an interim insolvency resolution professional (IRP) to take charge of the company.
Employees have so far submitted total claims of Rs 333.71 crore with the IRP. The total claims amount submitted by financial and operational creditors so far is Rs 18,888 crore.
Another tutor said there is no communication from Byju’s side and now from the IRP side. “We have a group and in case if someone asks about salary, we are immediately blocked or settings are changed where only admins can send messages,” the tutor pointed out. With no classes, and no salaries, tutors and students are now waiting for some clarity from the IRP.
An email sent to the IRP, came with an automatic reply saying, “Our office is closed until 4 November 2024 on account of Deepawali.”
As of May, BYJU’S Tuition Centres were active in 240 locations with over 1,000 full-time tutors. Sources said at least 203 centres were active but once they couldn’t pay rent, electricity bills, they were asked to move out of the premises. Another tutor pointed out that parents and debtors used to barge in when classes were on and threaten everyone. Apart from tutors, Byju’s total employees including subsidiaries stood at 25,000 till a month ago. While many have left to join other companies, the rest are searching for jobs.
Ganesh Mahadevan, partner, Thinksynq, said in the inorganic growth frenzy, it was chasing too many target audience sets each with different success measures.