Unacademy suspends contract of doubt-solving educators

In its latest move to cut costs, edtech unicorn Unacademy has suspended the contract of doubt-solving educators on the platform for six months. The educators worked on helping students with doubts related to the IIT-JEE and NEET examinations.

First reported by Moneycontrol, these contractors were suspended on July 31, with no notice period. "On Sunday (July 31) both sets of educators (IIT-JEE and NEET) got emails stating that their contracts were suspended for a minimum period of six months," a source told Moneycontrol. "It means that their services are not required for six months starting August and they will not get paid during the period."

The source also said that a six-month suspension was essentially equivalent to being removed from the Unacademy programme.

In the mail to the concerned educators, Unacademy said it was making "strategic changes" that will reduce the need for a doubt-solving platform. "Thus, we have decided to temporarily suspend all deliverables related to doubt solutions as mentioned in your content provider agreement," said the email.

This is the latest development in the company's cost-cutting measures after founder Gaurav Munjal announced, both publicly and in an internal email, that the company would need to cut costs in July.