India's booming edtech sector that was clocking a 200 to 300 percent rise in users during the pandemic has now hit turbulent waters as growth slows down amid a global funding winter coupled with the fact that after schools and colleges reopened, adding new users has become an uphill task.

To discuss the road ahead for the edtech sector CNBC-TV18 spoke to Mayank Kumar, Co-Founder & MD of upGrad, Co-Chair of India Ed-Tech Consortium; Ravi Bhushan, Founder & CEO of BrightChamps and Krishna Kumar, Founder & CEO of Simplilearn.

In just 2022, Indian edtech companies including big ticket unicorns laid off more than 4,000 employees in a bid to streamline teams that were expanded during a period of heady growth.

Conserving capital to ensure a longer runway seems to be the new mantra as most want to go slow on expansion, cut down on excessive spends, and explore new revenue streams. Some of course have even shut operations. The pain is writ large for a sector that had become the poster boy of the pandemic's digital boom story!

So while the success was stupendous, controversies have also been many — from mis-selling, to overly aggressive sales tactics and misleading advertisements, flags have been raised on how this hyper competitive sector has been going about growing its business.

Just last week, the Consumer Affairs Ministry in a meeting with the edtech consortium, warned them against unfair business practices saying that if self-regulation does not work, then the government will formulate stringent guidelines.

Now remember that in a bid to bring in self-regulation, earlier this year, edtech companies formed the India EdTech Consortium (IEC), to work under a common 'code of conduct' and establish a two-tier grievance redressal mechanism.

In fact, a Local Circles poll found that 66 percent Indians want the centre to regulate the edtech sector. At least 69 percent of those who have taken online coaching or learning classes say that they have faced issues.

The warning from the government comes at a time when the Advertising Standards Council of India’s annual report for 2021-22 found that the education sector led by edtech platforms accounted for 33 percent of all complaints on misleading advertisements.

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