Should Coaching Institutes Be Closed?

Copied from: http://www.businessworld.in/bw/2009_10_31_Should_Coaching_Institutes_Be_Closed.html?offset=1&max=1

‘Coaching Will Continue To Increase’

HRD minister Kapil Sibal’s call to curb coaching institutes finds support in some educationists. But the Rs 30,377-crore industry stands its ground the minister for human resource development wishes to rein in coaching institutes, or teaching shops, as he calls them. But his stand is totally unjustified because coaching emerges from the need to excel relative to others and it will continue to increase for all classes and for entrance examinations.

This phenomenon is not unique to India. Coaching is as prevalent in the US and Europe for all classes beginning with early childhood. There is a huge tuition market for SAT-1, SAT-2 (subject achievement tests, prevalent in the US) and the Test of English as a Foreign Language or TOEFL all over the world.

As for all the brouhaha over coaching institutes taking the focus of students preparing for competitive examinations away from senior secondary board examinations, it is important to note that the maximum money spent on coaching in India is for supplementing regular school education, and not for competitive examinations. Even in the best schools, the board toppers take tuitions. Needless to say, school teachers are more concerned about tuitions than teaching in the school.

D.K. GOEL, chairman and chief mentor, FIITJEE

Now let us analyse the fundamental positioning of IITs. What have they been achieving, or are purported to be achieving? They have an admission process to select the brightest — bright from the point of view of having the potential to be excellent technocrats. IIT graduates are supposed to create a higher level of productivity in the industry and, thus, contribute to the process of nation-building.

They have been excelling abroad. Their performance has created a lot of interest in India in the minds of those sitting in the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation and various foreign institutional investors, resulting in huge investments in India.

Yet, the number of problems IITs face calls for a serious review of the whole system. There is a severe shortage of teaching staff. They are not able to attract the right talent and there is no system for training the faculty. The teachers are, more often than not, unable to earn as well as their students and feel frustrated. They are right — they deserve better salaries. The government is doing nothing to increase the grants to IITs and the result is they figure nowhere in world rankings. Unlike leading colleges and universities abroad, IIT faculty get few opportunities to do industry-relevant research and consultancy work.

Clearly, IIT graduates have been doing better than the institutes themselves at a global level. The excellence of IITs is not a mark of success of the government or the IIT system, but an expression of Indian talent. The government has done little to enable students from backward areas and villages to have good education so that they too can compete for IITs.

The move to give more weightage to board examinations — up to 80 per cent as per some reports — will restrict students from rural and backward areas. Patterns and, therefore, scoring potential, varies across different boards. Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh are some of the boards where scoring 80 per cent-plus is much more difficult than in CBSE. Increasing the weightage for board examinations may lead to boards diluting their papers to let more students score above 80 per cent or whatever is the yardstick set by the IIT council.

The fact is that the boards test something different from what IIT-JEE stands to test. Giving weightage to board marks will defeat the purpose that IIT-JEE wishes to achieve.

Birla Institute of Technology (Bits), Pilani, has moved to an entrance test-based admission process to take the focus away from board examinations. The obvious reason is that there is a huge discrepancy in the marks secured by students from different states, and also the fact that on marks criterion alone, bright students from villages can never make it to Bits Pilani. Even in Delhi College of Engineering, where students come mostly from CBSE schools of Delhi, an entrance test has been introduced as scoring well in CBSE is considered different from having an aptitude for engineering.

(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 09-11-2009)