Aakash Educational Services Limited logo.
Credit: X/@AESL_Official
Bengaluru: Aakash Digital Classroom Program (AD-CRP), a programme by edtech Aakash Educational Services Ltd, has been shut down by the company, DH has verified from multiple sources.
Until March, Aakash was owned by Byju’s, from where more than 750 employees had joined AD-CRP.
“The AD-CRP team was part of Byju's system. This team has now been integrated with Aakash sales system which is responsible for selling all Aakash offerings including Aakash Digital. This team is being expanded to support our 200 centre expansion,” an Aakash spokesperson told DH.
As reported by DH earlier, Aakash has let go of some 200 employees between August and September, including layoffs as well as resignations. The remaining employees of AD-CRP have moved to Aakash’s call centre model or to offline branches as per available vacancies.
Those who did not accept this offer were laid off or resigned, as per informed sources. Many were also given the option of accepting a salary cut from what they were earning at Byju’s and continuing in the company, though this was not the case when they first migrated to Aakash.
Sources have said that layoffs still have not stopped in the past two weeks. The majority of layoffs have happened at the Associate level, as this role comprised the most of the AD-CRP team. Some were from the Senior Manager and Manager levels as well.
“The new season starts from January. They have used the AD-CRP team for the last six-seven months of revenue. Now everyone has been laid off and this is irrespective of performance. The reason given was that they no longer need this role in Aakash,” said a person aware of developments in the company.
In April 2021, Byju’s acquired Aakash for $940 million. In March this year, Think and Learn (Byju’s parent company) and Aakash withdrew the merger petition during a National Company Law Tribunal hearing.