Coach Red – Kota-type exam prep factories help students clear tough entrance tests, but at great future cost

Source: The post is based on the article “Coach Red – Kota-type exam prep factories help students clear tough entrance tests, but at great future cost” published in The Times of India on 20th June 2023

Syllabus: GS 2 – Education.

Relevance: About coaching factories.

News: India’s 23 IITs are its most internationally respected higher education brand. Of the around 11 lakh students who tried to make it into these elite institutions this year, around 43000 have crossed the JEE Advanced hurdle. With the pass rate being only 0. 04%. The toppers usually say that “Coaching has become a necessity now.”

How coaching factories have deeply penetrated India’s higher education and employment?

For Medicine, NEET exam is also like JEE. So, for a state like Tamil Nadu wants which wants to help more government school students clear NEET, free or heavily subsidised coaching programmes are part of their new-age education policy.

UPSC exam recruits central government’s ‘Group A’ officers with a sub 0. 5% success rate. This is also symbiotically tied to coaching factories.

What led to mushrooming of coaching factories?

The shortage of quality higher education forces parents to feel pressurised and put their children into the coaching factories.

Coaching factories are nimble and adaptive. For example, right after the BDesign course start trending among students, they came up with a coaching package in the market.

What are the issues posed by mushrooming of coaching factories?

-Though the rewards are high, the costs associated with coaching is significant. Not only money but also the toll coaching takes on the school years.

-By its very nature, groupthink limits goals and visions and thus achievements.

-They also prepare students for a professional life where professions may disappear one after another. For instance, Robotic coaching depends and demand more and more critical and conceptual thinking not rote learning.

So, for the government to create inventiveness, creativity, humanity back into learning processes is the great challenge in the education ecosystem.