Amazon.com Inc has launched an online academy to train students for one of India's most competitive college entrance tests, the e-commerce giant said on Wednesday, as it taps a boom in virtual learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Amazon Academy", available as a website and an Android smartphone app, will offer learning material, live lectures and assessments to help students prepare for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE), which allows entry into top engineering schools across India.
Content on the platform is currently available free and will remain free for "the next few months", Amazon India said in a statement.
Each year, close to two million aspirants to coveted undergraduate engineering courses take the government-run JEE, for which some take additional classes with private tutors. Many of those tuition centers have either moved online or shut during the pandemic.
India has seen a boom in online education, or ed-tech, a market which has only expanded as the pandemic forced schools to close.
The country's online education market for grades 1 to 12 should expand six-fold to $1.7 billion by 2022, while the market for students beyond grade 12 is set to nearly quadruple to $1.8 billion, consultancy RedSeer estimates.
Indian ed-tech startups including Unacademy, Vedantu and market leader BYJU's raised $2.22 billion in 2020, about four times the amount raised a year earlier, according to the Indian Private Equity and Venture Capital Association and PGA Labs.
BYJU's, backed by US investment firm Tiger Global, and SoftBank-backed Unacademy raised the most capital last year, at $1.35 billion and $264 million, respectively.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
10 Ingredients To Look For In A Face Cleanser And Why They Matter: Everything You Need To Know Death Stranding Director's Cut Now Available on Xbox Series S/X, Amazon Luna Probe Agency Searches Amazon Vendors Over Foreign Exchange Violation: Report Trump Asks Musk To Join Call With Zelensky In Big Hint At His Possible Role Trump's Immigration Curbs To Impact Millions Of Indians, Their Children Video: Jimmy Kimmel Chokes Up During TV Show Monologue About Trump Win Heat, Air Pollution, Disease: How Climate Change Affects Health Probe Finds Zomato, Swiggy Breached Antitrust Laws: Report Andhra Man Gets Stuck Between Train And Platform. What Happened Next Track Latest News Live on NDTV.com and get news updates from India and around the world.