‘We do not want distractions…’: PhysicsWallah on former teachers’ outburst

The PhysicsWallah (PW) controversy has sparked a debate ever since the video of the angry outbursts of its former teachers went viral.

Now, in a statement to Business Today, PhysicsWallah has addressed the controversy and called the whole episode a “distraction.” Neither denying or accepting the claims, the spokesperson said, “In any organisation, individuals join and leave in due course, and PW is immune to this natural progression. Some teachers have indeed left our organisation, and we value and respect their contributions to education and our growth journey. With entrance exams around the corner, our priority is to prepare the students. We do not want distractions to impede our students’ preparations or to create confusion among our teachers.”

For the unversed, a video of PW's former teachers surfaced on Sunday addressing the PhysicsWallah management and students. They said that allegations against them of being paid Rs 5 crore as a bribe were completely baseless and they quit PhysicsWallah because its atmosphere was no longer conducive to learning or teaching. The teachers -Tarun Kumar, Manish Dubey, and Sarvesh Dixit - have reportedly resigned from the edtech start-up over their differences with founder Alakh Pandey, they claimed.

The said bribe was from a rival edtech company called Adda247. They also accused their former colleague at PW, Pankaj Sijairya, of spreading the false rumours and targeting them. After quitting the start-up, the three professors launched their own YouTube channel named 'Sankalp.' Challenging PhysicsWallah, the three teachers on their channel claimed that the organisation's main emphasis of providing good, affordable education eventually shifted after it became bigger.

The teachers further explained the reason behind leaving PhysicsWallah. They said that they were abiding by the vision of the edtech start-up but situations changed and they felt that they were no longer aligned with the organisation.

Founded in 2016, PhysicsWallah is one of the top edtech companies which unlike its contemporaries BYJU’S and Unacademy is also profitable.