Keeping the growing coronavirus pandemic in mind, leading ed-tech companies have announced to make learning on their platforms free for millions in the country, with BYJU's witnessing a massive 60 percent increase in online traffic within a week.

Divya Gokulnath, co-founder and director, BYJU'S, said that in light of the ongoing COVID-19 health crisis, students are currently able to download and access BYJU'S learning programmes for free until the end of April.

"Since our announcement last week, we have witnessed a 60 percent increase in the number of new students using the app to learn from home daily," she said in a statement.

The number of queries from students and parents for BYJU's home learning programmes have more than doubled in the past one week.

"Students across both metros and non-metros are increasingly accessing the lessons on the app. In fact, students with year-end exams (higher grades) are using video lessons to revise crucial concepts while the younger grade students are learning new concepts and getting themselves ready for the coming year," informed Gokulnath.

Edtech company Unacademy on Wednesday announced to open up its platform for all the educational institutions across the country to come and teach live on the platform.

Gaurav Munjal, co-founder and CEO at Unacademy, said in a series of tweets that as the entire nation takes preventive measures to combat COVID-19, the education system has suffered a setback too, with educational institutions shutting down until the situation improves.

"At Unacademy, we believe that learning must never stop, come what may. Thus, we are opening up our platform to educational institutions across the country to conduct their classes online, via Unacademy," said Munjal.

"Till the situation improves, they will be able to use our platform, for free, without any limitations on the hours or number of classes," he added.

Akhand Swaroop Pandit, CEO and Founder of nCatalyst Group, an online learning platform for competitive exam, said that they are giving free access to students for various online classes on competitive exams.

"Overall, we have witnessed 30-40 percent in admissions in the last two to three days and also the number of students regularly attending the online classes are increased due to colleges and school shutdown," he said.

First Published:Mar 18, 2020 10:26 PM IST