For years, teachers have used YouTube to promote their lessons and persuade learners to join their classes. YouTube said on Monday it is taking broader steps to make the video platform more appealing for educators and learners and also provide more monetization avenues to the creators.
At its annual India conference on Monday, Google unveiled Courses, a feature that will seek to bring structured learning experience on YouTube.
Teachers will be able to publish and organize their videos and provide text reading materials and questions right on the video app. They will be allowed to offer the content for free or charge a fee, the company said.
Courses will span academic as well as vocational interests, the company said. Viewers who buy a Course will be able to watch the videos without ads.
The feature will roll out to users in India “soon,” and will represent a “new monetization option for our creators,” the company said.
Monday’s move represents Google’s growing push to make inroads in India’s education market, where over 300 million students go to schools. Meta and Amazon have also made deep investments in the space in recent years.
