Khan Sir, as he is known by his students, animatedly talks of a time when bullets were pelted, and bombs exploded at his coaching centre in Patna.
“One bomb landed near my foot, but it didn’t burst," he recalls.
Rivals from other coaching centres were responsible, he says, because of his record low tuition fees: Rs 200 for a six-month course to prep for a government job versus the offline industry standard of roughly Rs 15,000. Naturally, students from all over Patna—and beyond—flocked to Khan’s classes, who never reveals his full name to anyone.
If anything, the attacks made Khan more of a hero. Classes resumed that same evening as hundreds of students took turns at guarding the centre while their peers were being coached. “I did not need any police protection. For one month my students stood by me like NSG guards giving me Z+ level security," he beams.
This was in mid-2019. Fast-forward to today and Khan still charges Rs 200 for six-month courses that help students clear competitive exams such as UPSC, NDA, and Airforce entrance test, among several others. The only difference is that he now teaches on YouTube—a shift he had to make due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Since starting out on YouTube in April 2020, Khan has become a sensation with a whopping 20 million subscribers. It is the largest and fastest growing edtech channel in the world, he claims. PhysicsWallah, which Alakh Pandey also started out as a YouTube channel before taking on venture funding and hitting a valuation of $1 billion, has nine million subscribers by comparison.
Khan isn’t alone in offering quality teaching at record low prices over YouTube. ‘Vivek Sir’ of Exampur—which is in talks with UpGrad for a potential acquisition ‘VT Sir’ of StudyBharat fame ‘Rohit Sir’ of Scoreplus and ‘Ashu Sir’ of Science and Fun, all run hugely popular YouTube channels with millions of subscribers. Students see them as larger-than-life personalities, heroes from their hometowns of Patna, Modinagar, Ghaziabad, and Noida, respectively. “They are leading a revolution, providing quality education at such low rates," says one student who studied under Vivek Kumar of Exampur.
But can these homegrown heroes separate their cult from their businesses to give edtech giants, like Byju’s and Unacademy, a run for their money?
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(left) Vivek Kumar and Vardaan Gandhi, co-founders, Exampur
Image: Amit Verma
Ashu Ghai teaches science in a fun way focusing on experiments, has five million subscribers on his YouTube channel, which he calls Science and Fun. Image: Amit Verma
Ashu Ghai, another star teacher from Noida, who teaches science in a fun way focusing on experiments, has five million subscribers on his YouTube channel, which he calls Science and Fun. He launched an app in early December on which science and math courses for 10th and 12th class students are currently offered free of charge. His offline centres in Delhi charge students Rs 9,000 per year for all subjects, compared to other centres that charge Rs 25,000 per year for one subject. “I use experiments and jokes to make science concepts come alive. Yes, this means we cover the syllabus slowly, but we do extra classes on Sundays for 3+ hours. Students fight with their parents to come attend our classes," he says.
“Teacher quality dilution due to other teachers coming on board aside from the main celebrity teacher / key-man is something most of these channels / platforms will struggle with over the long term," notes Kheterpal.
Vishal Tiwari, a former Unacademy teacher, started StudyBharat as a YouTube channel and app six months ago to help students crack the JEE and NEET exams
Image: Amit Verma
Gandhi is aware of the risk. Kumar, for example, was teaching individually before Gandhi came on board. Now Exampur has a team of 125 teachers, teaching over 100 courses. “When a teacher joins, he goes on a 15-day training period in which he is taught basics like how to talk to students while in front of a camera," he says. “They should feel as though the teacher is in front of them – that’s what made Vivek stand out in the market, so that’s what we try to replicate." Khan, too, individually picks teachers who are not only good at simplifying concepts for students but share his same “mindset", he says. “They have to be enthusiastic about changing our education system and doing so at a low cost," he says. He has a team of 600 teachers.
Importantly, as these entities scale or get snapped up by bigger edtech players can they continue to keep their fees at rock-bottom levels? Take the case of PhysicsWallah. Since raising $100 million in its Series A round, they have set up physical coaching centres that charge Rs 30,000 to Rs 60,000 per course--a far cry from its Rs 3,500 online course fees. A focus on vanity metrics may also creep in forcing such entities to go down the route of aggressive sales tactics like Byju’s.
Exampur’s Gandhi chose not to comment on anything related to the UpGrad acquisition as the talks are underway. Will they keep their focus on quality education at low prices?
Khan, who regularly gets offers “in hundreds of crores" from larger edtech players to join forces, is quick to respond: “Where did Dronacharya take fees from his students? It’s just not in our culture."
First Published: Jan 27, 2023, 13:13
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