Regulate Ed-Tech sector, do quality control: MP Karti Chidambaram

The Member of Parliament from Sivaganga and son of former union minister P Chidambaram, Karti Chidambaram’s discussion targeting India’s burgeoning Ed-tech sector in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday has opened Pandora’s box eventuating an unprecedented debate on the issue.

The MP, along with some of the Ed-tech giants in India were most spoken about even on social media platforms after the former expressed concerns over an unregulated functioning of the emerging sector in the country and highlighted the need for monitoring the quality of education delivered.

During the discussion, he sought to know the legality of education offered on these platforms, the calibre of educators, accreditation and the financial model of these companies.

While not explicitly naming the brand, Karti spoke about how certain Ed-tech platforms had grown significantly. “Today, there are online educational companies which are worth billions of dollars. Some of them are worth even more than the entire educational budget of India. These companies offer online courses which are not vetted by anybody,” he said.

During the talk, he also claimed that these platforms had grown larger than the establishment and that unsuspecting parents fall prey to their marketing techniques.

“But the power of this company is so much that it is able to bring down the complaints that are there on social media. If you put a complaint on social media, they bring it down. In fact, this company sponsors the Indian Cricket Team now. You know exactly who I am referring to. This company is worth 21 billion dollars. Our entire Indian educational budget is not worth that much. So, it is very essential to have some concerted effort to monitor these companies and prevent them from doing these predatory marketing practices where they are auto-debiting the accounts of unsuspecting people,” he added.

Following this, he also took to Twitter and shared a letter he wrote to the union education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan.

“These companies deliberately employ predatory marketing practices that often prey upon underprivileged parents by force-selling those courses far out of their purchasing power under false pretences and then signing them up for loans without knowledge or consent. This practice is in fact so thoroughly ingrained in certain companies’ practices that they have partnered up with lending companies to push unsuspecting parents to debt traps. Their marketing tactics include making children look bad in front of their parents by asking intentionally tricky questions and drilling into parents the idea that their child will get nowhere without the help of these companies and their courses. These companies cannot be allowed to hound parents and destroy children’s confidence in the name of marketing. Regulations ensuring EdTech companies adhere to an ethical advertising code is the need of the hour,” he sought in the letter.

As a follow up to my zero hour intervention in parliament about the need to regulate EduTech cos, I have now written to the Education Minister @dpradhanbjp pic.twitter.com/i3CBiVU0Rd

— Karti P Chidambaram (@KartiPC) December 14, 2021