With the dream of joining the prestigious higher education institutions in the country, lakhs of student flock to coaching centres to prepare for various “high-stakes” exams. With the increasing competition and number of entrance exams, coaching institutions are mushrooming nationwide.
Coaching institutions have thus become highly commercialised, and the coaching industry’s market revenue currently stands at a whopping Rs. 60,000 crores. However, everything is not hunky-dory. Kota in Rajasthan, known as the coaching hub of the country, has alone witnessed 27 suicides among students in 2023. This has been a cause for alarm amongst the stakeholders, including the government.
The commercialised coaching culture contributes to severe stress among students. Since coaching institutions play a significant part in students’ preparation, in order to curate targeted policies, it is imperative to understand the ground realities through the voices of students, who are major stakeholders in this industry.
This author was part of a team that conducted a primary survey of 997 students from top Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and National Law Universities (NLUs) who attended coaching classes while preparing for entrance examinations, JEE and CLAT, respectively.
The survey reveals serious problems plaguing the coaching industry and affecting the student community. Among other observations, the three major problems that can be identified are: Information Asymmetry, Mental Health, and Dummy Schools.
Information asymmetry in coaching industry
Coaching institutions are experience-based services, where the quality of the service can only be ascertained by its consumption. This leads to serious information asymmetry in this industry. After joining any coaching institution, students have constrained exit options if they find the coaching to be substandard compared to what was promised to be provided.
Coaching institutions refuse to refund fees, as evident from numerous cases filed in consumer courts. Further, students are not made aware of the refund policies of coaching institutions while joining the same. Almost half of the engineering students and 60 per cent of law students claim that they were not made aware of the refund policy of their institute.
Although the coaching market is commercialised significantly, the coaching institutes are not bound by the promises they make orally or through their brochures. There are no detailed lists of facilities the coaching institutions intends to provide under a particular package. Even if they roughly mention the facilities, they are internally tweaked or not strictly followed.
This is because there exist no contractual obligations between the coaching and students. Almost 40 per cent of students from both streams said they were not made to sign any contract. Although oral contracts are valid in India, it is tedious and impossible to prove the specific promises that are made when they are not in writing. Therefore, the students have no other option but to rely on the promises made.
Responses from the survey in “Yes” and “No” (Combined engineering and law)
No specific remedy to enforce performance exists except the general remedy of “deficiency of service” provided in consumer law. However, to exploit this provision, it needs to be shown that a specific promise was made in the first place. Practically speaking, even that is not enough because parents and students cannot be expected to litigate.
This existing information asymmetry is worsened by misleading advertisements. Coaching institutions are engaged in aggressive advertisements to signal themselves as the best in the market. These advertisements are marked with success stories of the toppers, which are often misleading and false.
These toppers are primarily monetarily awarded, and their identity is bought by various coaching institutions, which claim these toppers have studied in their institutes. Sometimes, the student is falsely claimed as a part of a coaching institution without consent. Fifty-two per cent of engineering students and 64 per cent of law students claimed to the surveyors that the advertisement by their coaching institution was a factor that led them to join that coaching.
Increasing mental health issues
The rising number of suicides among students preparing for competitive exams hints at growing mental health crises and a lack of institutional support for the students to deal with them. The coaching culture facilitates this phenomenon among young minds.
With the mounting pressure on students to score well in tests and improve ranks to be elevated to the topper batch, where students are given extra perks and facilities compared to lower batches, students failed to diversify their schedule to avoid burnout. This is further aggravated by the long and hectic coaching hours students have to go through as a part of their preparation. Our survey reveals various other reasons that induce mental health issues in aspirants.
Coaching firms fail to encourage students to engage in other activities (recreational) besides studies. Sixty-seven per cent of engineering and 54 per cent of law students said never or rarely when asked whether their coaching motivated them to engage in other activities besides studies.
Further, there is no discussion on the alternative career path available to students if they do not succeed. Sixty-three per cent of engineering students and 53 per cent of law students said never or rarely such alternative career paths are discussed. This is evidence of the skewed focus of coaching institutions solely on studies without looking out for its potential consequences on students and developing a conducive culture where studies and health are given equal priority.
Likert scale of 1-5 (Never = 1 to Always = 5) (Combined for engineering and law)
Another fundamental problem of coaching culture found more amongst engineering aspirants than law is the rampant practice of segregating students based on their test scores. Seventy-seven per cent and 49 per cent of engineering and law students, respectively, suffered segregation. We call it intellectual segregation. Students with better scores are elevated to the topper batch in this arrangement, while those with low scores are reshuffled to lower batches.
This hierarchical structure is problematic. Thirty-six per cent and 56 per cent of engineering and law students, respectively, have agreed or strongly agreed that they were negatively affected by this.
Segregation is defended as necessary because students with high scores are deemed to understand the concepts better and are in the advanced stages of their preparation. Hence, teaching methodology for high scorers should be different from that of lower-batch students.
This is a faulty defence. A student who scored 91 and shifted to the toppers batch is no different from a student who scored within the range of 85-90. Another noteworthy point is that students from topper batches are given extra perks such as classes by senior faculty, extra material, extra classes, extra doubt-clearing sessions and fee reduction, among other things.
Had the idea of segregation been solely aligning the pace of learning as per the student’s preparation, the inequality in providing the abovementioned facilities would not have existed. Rationally, more resources should be deployed for students not scoring well rather than exclusively offering them to the toppers. In our survey, 67 per cent of engineering and 59 per cent of law students have agreed or strongly agreed that coaching institutions focus more on toppers.
Studies have suggested that students learn better in an intellectually diverse class, and segregation not only affects the slow learners but also the brighter ones.
Another critical observation concerns the availability of an effective mental health support system. Our survey highlights that coaching institutions do not have the proper support system.
In response to the question, “Your coaching had effective mental health counselling facilities”, 56 per cent of engineering and 71 per cent of law students disagreed or strongly disagreed. While this may mean a total absence of mental health counselling facilities, or even if facilities are available, they are defunct or substandard, or the students are not made aware or are encouraged to access them.
Due to a lack of timely institutional intervention in terms of addressing mental health illness, students succumb to pressure. Coaching institutions house students from diverse backgrounds; hence, awareness of mental health issues may vary; therefore, it becomes the responsibility of coaching institutions to have a suitable and effective mental health support system.
Likert scale of 1-5 (Strongly Disagree = 1 to Strongly Agree = 5) (Combined for engineering and law)
Huge social cost due to dummy schools
Schools play a foundational role in a student’s life for building the groundwork of knowledge and cultivating the overall personality of an individual through a diverse curriculum. However, the emergence of dummy schools has undermined the true purpose of schooling. Dummy schools are those schools where students would be promoted to the next class without attending classes and attempting any internal exam.
While preparing for entrance examinations, students enrol in dummy schools to dispense with the requirement of attending schools to have more time for preparation. More than 40 per cent of engineering students and around 30 per cent of law students did not attend regular school while preparing for entrance examinations.
The competition is so cut-throat that students enrol themselves in coaching institutions as early as grade 6th to begin their preparation. Interestingly, coaching institutions have started running their own schools, where, apart from regular school studies, the curriculum is focused on offering foundational courses for entrance examinations in early classes.
This is not proper schooling. Schooling has essential components, including sports, cultural activities, peer interaction, and competitions, which help the student explore and develop a holistic personality. Coaching institutions offering foundational courses in schools would essentially mean sole focus on regular studies and exam preparation.
This leads to a huge social and emotional cost for students because their minds are constrained at a young age, hindering the nourishment of critical and creative thinking while circling their lives to cram formulas and practise papers. Interestingly, only 33 per cent and 25 per cent of engineering and law students agreed or strongly agreed that coaching institutions make them wiser person overall and not just academically smarter.
At an early age, students are thrown in an environment where every activity is focussed on just one exam. As a result, success or failure in exam is perceived as life and death situation leading to more mental pressure.
Students support idea of regulating coaching industry
In our survey, 67 per cent of engineering and 82 per cent of law students supported the idea that the coaching industry should be regulated. At the same time, despite this industry being marred with problems, students have answered negatively to the question of eliminating coaching institutions altogether.
When asked whether the world could be a better place without coaching institutions, 37 per cent of engineering students and 41 per cent of law students disagreed or strongly disagreed. Further, engineering and law students (61 per cent and 59 per cent, respectively) agreed or strongly agreed that they developed interest in the subject after joining a coaching institution.
These two observations may attract criticism of bias because the survey was of successful students placed in top IITs and NLUs. The answer to the abovementioned observation might have been different had the survey included students who were left out due to a slightly lower score than the cut-off or are part of a so-called lower institutions. This could be further investigated.
Be that as it may, this suggests that coaching institutions play an instrumental role in facilitating student’s preparation. However, the structure of exams, purpose, and the way coaching institutions work are the larger problems that need to be addressed to make students’ experiences better and healthier.
Goyam Pitalia is a student at NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad.
A version of this article appeared on the EPW in its June volume.
