NCPCR summons | Before sign-up, Byju’s will test what parents can pay

Byju’s will put in place an ‘affordability’ test for parents when their wards sign up for its online courses, in a bid to better understand their financial bandwidth, National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) chairperson Priyank Kanoongo told ET.

The assurance comes a week after the child rights body summoned the edtech unicorn’s chief executive, Byju Raveendran, following complaints from some parents that its sales team had allegedly coerced them into taking loans to fund courses for their children.

“They have said they will start taking an affordability test,” Kanoongo told ET. “They have come to realise that it is not right to cheat kids. The test will help them filter out parents with family incomes less than Rs 25,000 a month. They will not sell courses to such parents.”


At Friday’s hearing, Byju’s founding partner Pravin Prakash represented the Bengaluru-based company before NCPCR. The commission has powers under Section 14 of the CPCR Act of 2005 akin to that of a civil court to try a suit under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908.

Byju’s told ET it does not directly offer loans. “In order to assist students that require financial support, where requested, Byju’s connects the parents of such students to reputed third-party banks/financial institutions,” it said in a statement.

Quick refund processing

“It is impossible for any sales executive to get a loan approved merely by making a potential customer sign some documents,” Byju’s said in the statement.

It also said 98.5% of refund requests submitted to it have been processed within 48 hours.

Kanoongo said Prakash had informed the commission that Byju’s would change its refund policy. “We have told them that loans under the Reserve Bank of India’s education guidelines do not cover loans for tuition. So, they must completely stop these. We have explained to them… they responded saying that the matter will get resolved immediately with affordability tests in place,” the chairperson said.

NCPCR has also asked Byju’s to not take fees in advance and to clearly mention contact details of its grievance officer on the company’s website. “Whatever complaints we have got, that is still left to be dealt with on a case-to-case basis,” Kanoongo said.

The child rights body has also asked Byju’s to ensure police verification of non-teaching staff and effective regulation of online learning hours.

Kanoongo said the Commission would provide its communication in writing to Byju’s on Monday.

“This is the beginning of a betterment of online education in India. I’d like to assure that they cooperated with this by turning professional instead of commercial,” he added.

Byju’s said it provides free courseware to more than 5.5 million children from underprivileged families through its Education For All (EFA) social initiative arm.

“Sales personnel have been encouraged and enabled to recommend every parent, who wants to learn from Byju’s but cannot afford it, to the EFA team, which works with over 175 NGOs,” it added.