In DU north campus areas of kamla nagar, shakti nagar, etc. the pg rent issue is not as rampant as in case ORN, students there love their freedom and are also very goal oriented (tho there are exceptions), the place seems super student friendly, even the food is good quality and pocket friendly. But, the situation changes for worse in case of ORN, depressed people, evil landlords, congested and polluted roads, i wonder if it is the upsc-coaching-landlord nexus that has made the plight of students at ORN deplorable. Not pointing fingers at coachings (you have enough people to do that), because an overwhelming majority of students themselves see this exam only as an opportunity to gain social prestige rather than, becoming an IAS who works selflessly to improve the system, you take away the perks and emoluments and see how many stay. Offline environment encouraging the lazy lot to slog is no excuse to choose offline over online, if that is the case these feeble brains will break the minute they face resistance as an officer, eventually bandwagoning with corrupt forces. What you need is a system, there are 100s of aspirants who crack the exam from their homes. self-imposed discipline is all you need. If you still choose to go for offline for whatever consideration, feel free to do so, but remember. then you'll be the price taker with little to no bargaining power. Expanding to different pockets of Delhi will not serve the purpose, because eventually those areas too will go beyond their carrying capacity.
Long story short ->the nature of the exam, the competition, lack of equally good opportunities and the glory associated to it has made ORN what it is today. Bubble that was ORN was waiting to burst.
PS - sorry i digressed a little towards the end, i don't intend on demeaning anyone, i just want people to reconsider their priorities, because the goal is to working towards a better India, be it via UPSC, MBA, entrepreneurship, etc.
I don’t think institutions are not empathetic. You cannot just blame them because they are charging you some money. They are after all delivering services. The top management definitely are running the institutions with a profit motive. But from my personal interactions, the teachers & mentors were efficient, empathetic and humble unlike our college professors.But the professors don’t earn as much as probably the coaching people make and in India whoever makes money has to be branded a Devil.The real culprit is the administration. Who is the enforcer of rules ? The systematic corruption in the administration is to be blamed. They take bribes, do nothing and then just arrest a SUV driver for the death of our brothers and sisters. Ridiculous!Who is to be blamed for the death of the bright mind who was electrocuted last week ? Who is the real culprit?A culpable homicide case should be registered against the officers who inspected the premises, those who were responsible for enforcing rules and those who took bribes.Overall, I don’t see this as an ORN problem. Indian cities and urbanisation is haphazard. Unless and until we decentralise things, nothing will change. We need big ticket reforms like Social Accountability bill that allows public to launch enquiries against officials.If the officials were efficient, coachings will become efficient too. If there are proper rules and enforcements, even coachings will adhere to set norms and standards. But there is NO ENFORCEMENT at all.I don’t think coaching can do anything except maybe involve the students on a platform and become the AGONY AUNT’s like the Jeetu Bhaiya on Kota factory. They are far powerless than we can imagine. Most might think that administration is in the pockets of these big institutions. Well, I don’t think so. They are equally harassed by the incompetent and corrupt officials.You remember how Vision IAS was raided by IT department for an ideological comment by their teacher.However, the distrust between coaching and students is rising day by day. Slowly and steadily, people are looking at most institutions as part of the GREAT COACHING MAFIA. Transparency and communication is the only way this can be bridged
exactlyy! And the sad part is, these issues have always existed but it took 4 deaths to cause an outrage!
Another reason why the plan of decongesting ORN with coachings shifting to newer locations may not work is that in game theory you learn about nash equilibrium, all the participants anticipate each others' moves, example - institute x would expect institutes y and z to move out, whereas institute y would hope the same and similarly for institute x, because no one would want to miss out on reaping the dividends and leave an already established hub.
Trying to model another ORN in other regions is a naive attempt atsupply creating its own demand, this would require pouring a tremendous amount of resources and god knows when you'll reach break even. See, coachings are not NGOs, at best we can demand quality at the price at which courses are offered and to some extent a downward revision of the prices of some courses, because that is the morally right thing to do.
As for FORUMIAS, the institute can focus on revamping some programmes that haven't seen much success, might as well scrap some, this will ensure quality, focus on your specialisation, specialisation will be the real game. Foundation would become redundant, students would prefer module courses as online gains more space among the aspirants while the ORN bubble begins to deflate.
