Yet, the system has also exacerbated the social divide between the haves and have-nots, who are confined to the largely abysmal state-run education system. That means entrance tests and examinations are a high-stakes juncture in a person's life. A half-hearted attempt at testing the country's education system in 2021 was aborted when the Covid-19 pandemic hit the country. The company, which offers services ranging from online tutorials to offline coaching, attracted billions of dollars from investors worldwide during the pandemic when online education services were in high demand. One of the companies it bought was an offline test preparation service called Aakash Education Services, which is still expected to IPO this year.

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Persons: Firdous Nazir, NurPhoto, Cram, —, Byju's Organizations: Youth Congress, Getty, Testing Agency, Reuters, FIFA, Aakash Education Services Locations: Jammu, Kashmir, India, Kota, Rajasthan, PISA, Kyrgyzstan, Turkish