I don't know why upsc "coaching" shy away from providing a study space within their institute? What if one arrives a bit early to their class? where is the student suppose to wait n study ?
If Forum is thinking to relocate in a new area. Then they should consider having a free library. Why?
Considering the fact that new areas are a bit outside the main area, travelling will be a bit of an issue. However, if forum has a study space to offer, students can move early in the morning and study before and after the class, till eod.
Taking AWFG as a case study. When I did it back in '22, it was happening in the morning, and then had dipin sir's class. If forum had a study space, that would have opened up avenues for people to go through the copies of others, interact with them and learn from them. I legit had to go through Utkarsh's and Rashmirathi's copies during dipin sir's class. Now I have heard Awfg is in afternoon, people who are not giving mains this year and are still enrolled in AWFG can benefit a lot from study rooms within forum. If one stays there before awfg, revises the content with other peers, writes the paper and then discusses it with their friends/mentors(8am-4pm), then forum will legit be a part of their success journey.
I do realise AWFG or SFG may not be financially profitable courses to run and thus library facility for those students would be perceived as an economically unsound decision. But the thing is, how is forum known to people? Which courses produce result for forum ? SFG may not be financially viable, but it yields results. Toppers suggest to join SFG for prelims and MGP for mains. How many toppers have we seen that promote GSAP or Foundation course of forum?
One might argue that toppers send(recommend) their relatives silently to foundation/gsap courses of forum and thus these cohorts are successful too. If that is the case, then more people from foundation should find their name in the list rather than people who just do SFG/MGP+CA.
If SFG and MGP are producing results, and are a reason why people have trust in Forum, then isn't it ethically moral and economically logical to provide sufficient infrastructure to students who are availing these courses? The more successful these programmes will be, the more people will enroll in these programmes. And TBH sfg and mgp helps to build trust in other programmes of forum. I tried GSAP because MGP/SFG/AWFG didn't disappoint me.
Offline students who enroll in year long MGP will benefit a lot from study centre available in forum. Imagine, people sitting together enriching their notes, learning from each others notes, going through toppers copy, inculcating their style for 5-6 long months. Now that's a success story where forum can start writing! (This is different form residential coaching')
Maintaining and expanding any institute at the end boils down to having a mutual trust relationship between the service provider and the beneficiary. Providing a study space where one can study is a first step in trust building process. Next step would deal with having faculty and mentors full time to solve doubts of students in answer writing, conceptual clarity and prelims tips. I remember staying in Siitjee from 7am till 8 pm, after few months the class was my home, the teachers and security guards were equally happy when I cleared mains. I was shocked when I visited forum's offline centre for the first time and saw that I couldn't sit inside the coaching and study there??
It's my personal take but I feel Neyawn promotes a solitary approach to study. And a suggestion for providing study space within his institute might raise his eyebrows, but I feel this would be one of the first step in establishing an eco-system for forum. The idea of coming to forum just to 'attend classes' or to 'write tests' is a transactional capitalistic idea that I'm not okay with. Always thought forum to be a space where I interact with my mentors, my friends and learn from them. If forum is not able to do that in offline(REAL) world then, it's a failure from the management side. Had to leave Delhi, in a way because of this. Where is the community feeling in Forum centre or in any coaching centre as for that manner?
Not that big of a deal, it happened years ago but ya Admin scolded me because I would go and meet mentors during 15 mins of ethics break that neywan would give. Ofcourse I hope, forum has grown now. But if not, then some internal restructuring is needed. Cause if one finds a student who consults a mentor in 15 mins of a lecture break to be 'troublesome' and 'devoid of manners' then god help the morals and thinking of the institute.
Some say this protest is short lived, some argue that it will yield meaningful results. Tbh my krantikari days are over, but I would be a fool if I wouldn't learn anything from this protest. There are structural and societal flaws in the whole Upsc dream and coaching industry. And some of it can be addressed without the help of the government.
Students ( we ) go through loneliness a lot. Study rooms in coaching can be a step to prevent the loneliness. I don't see how suggesting a solitary method to preparation can be a solution to it. It might be a good suggestion to yield success in short term and short phases(1-2 months) but in long term it I don't think it's that ideal.
The idea that forum as an institute would focus on engaging with 'smart' people rather than 'average' people from rural towns pisses me off! It's an elitist idea to say the least. Well smart people come from a relatively privileged background and to be honest, the situation in orn won't affect them that much. Would AIR 35 of '18 or AIR'175 face the same challenges 'equally' the protestors are facing right now? No hate against them, they come from families that can bare the economic expenses that can cripple the 'average folks'.
When the management says that it is keen to be focused on smart people who yield results, then brother, chances are these smart people will still stay in orn and be 'insulated' from the larger problems that haunt thousands of aspirants. Or they will move out of Delhi and prepare from home, cause they have functioning and healthy family. Why bother changing the location of institute then? Why bother for any reforms at all? Results to aa hi rahe Haina? Yeh tokenism ki kya zarurat hai?
If Forum is thinking of relocating or reforming because of 'new government guidelines' or because 'some changes are necessary to prevent bad reputation' and not because of an internal urge for betterment, then tbh reforms or our suggestions won't help to have a significant change in the real life scenario. People have suggested beautiful ideas in this thread. The idea of newspaper advertisement which highlights relevant provisions for landlord/sexual harassment safety is very beautiful. It helps to build image of forum other than a 'coaching company'.
I do realise that forum at the end of the day is a business and will have profits in it's mind. And I'm not advocating forum to target each and every upsc aspirant. The fact that there are people in India who struggle to write comprehensive english is state's fault. The fact that orn is a shithole is state's fault. The very necessity of emergence and blooming of coaching institutes' for JEE/NEET/CLAT/SSC/UPSC is state's failure in providing sound education. And state isn't keen on revolutionising it anytime soon.
Two roads open up to address this failure, either pursue commerce without ethics or pursue compassionate capitalism. If Neywan is confident that forum will anyways have 200-500 people in the list irrespective of any major structural changes in teaching and courses' pedagogy then compassionate capitalism provides a way to ensure a more safe space for the aspirants and "society".
Inequality is increasing at an exponential scale. French Revolution Yad haina? Why do you think Jhakas and Sawadh Bhoja are facing backlash more? If one 'sells' the dream of IAS to the point that people are selling/ renting their lands, just to pursue this dream then one should be prepared to face the consequences when the dream shatters or when 'the bubble bursts'. Coaching is a bubble. It's bound to burst soon, Forum has to decide which side it will be on.
Also Stop with saying SFG/AWFG is a programme that doesn't give profits?? Cause as far as I can understand, people struggle with consistency,->they give less tests ->More profit for institure. /SFG has two levels that requires an entrance fees, and two time payments. All in all, it comes around to 10-12k. Other coaching provides test series around 5-8k. Either provide us with some data that say that sfg is not economically viable or OWN the fact that SFG is moderately expensive but it yields results and consistency. You can't have chit(heads) bhi Meri and pat(tails) bhi Meri approach.
And what's up with the attitude of 'scraping' SFG if people are complaining that it's "too costly" ? Yeh kya gaslighting and manipulative behaviour hai bhai? Put out facts, gain our trust, help us understand your economics instead of threatening to scrap SFG. Make it easy for us to trust you.
Why Satyam Jain had a bloom last year? He pointed out one 'key essential flaw', That the coaching don't provide checked answer copies of toppers thus creating and exploiting the trust deficit. Forum should work on reducing the trust deficit.
Aspirants are protesting. A collective conscious has emerged within us. I just wish people in Engineering and medical colleges grow a conscious as well. Suicides should not be normalised in these colleges.
Overall I have an intellectually pessimistic approach. I won't be disappointed to know that this wouldn't lead to major reforms in coaching industry or the psyche of people. I'm a normal guy, I wanna grind, get in and help people around me to get in and if possible make their journey a bit bearable and easier than mine.
Also Neyawn attached emails of people in residential coaching, that in a way implies that some people are studying silently without letting the other person know. This is alienation to the core! Where is the community in this? If people are this selfish and lowkey in preparation phase then its worrisome to imagine how they'll behave once they gain power. Results aajaenge bhai, but with it bitterness will come as well. It won't be a 'we' victory. And that's harmful for any new programme. You take pride in Intial phases of forum right? why? because you emphasise that people learnt from each other. Though I have no idea about how forum was pre covid, but I hope it was beautiful cause earlier community meet do seem very real and interactive!
I'm/ was a student of a govt. residential programme. Here people help each other out. A community feeling is there. Of course some sense of privacy and competition is there. But it's not alienating, it's not suffocating, management is in the loop and it's healthy. If people don't clear prelims, we feel sad. If some people make it in the list, it's a 'we' victory, if some of us don't make it into the list, we feel their pain. Hell, we are conscious about our celebration because we are more heartbroken that our peers couldn't make in. If forum wants to build it's residential programme, a 'we' community feeling is essential. A more emphasis on why people couldn't clear prelims can also be productive for Forum as it's in it's early phases and has not institutionalised yet.
Results and toppers ayenge and jaenge yar, very few are relevant after 2 years. Same with bureaucrats. Masses feel sad when bureaucrats that did actual ground work are transferred! Public and social relations are essential! Institutions stay. And Good institutions last long.
tldr : Forum should work on making a community and an eco system that's healthy.
