Coaching institutes-have they overpowered our education system?
Whenever I go to my office in the morning, it is amusing and heartening as well to see roads flocked by dozens of youngsters with bags on their backs returning from somewhere I didn't know.
I ask my driver- are they returning from school? Is it not the usual time to go there? Why are they returning from there?
He replies- नहीं सर! इ बच्वन सब कौचिंग कर के न आ रहा है. मेरा बेटा भी उहे कौचिंग में न पढ़ता है. अबकी बार नौ कलास में गया है. क्या करें स्कूल में त कुछो पढ़ाई होता नहीं है.
इ जीला का इहे न टाॅप का कौचिंग है सर.
(No sir; these boys and girls are returning from coaching. My son also studies in that coaching center which is the number one coaching center in this district. What could be done when in school teachers do not teach.)
I muttered in surprise- Coaching for class 9!
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In our times coaching centers or institutes were not many.
In fact,if I am to tell the truth there was not a single coaching center in my district where I studied upto intermediate.
Even in capital Patna in our times only two coaching institutes namely one Premier Coaching and the other Paradise Coaching were there. One of them claimed to be an specialist in preparing aspirants for engineering entrance examination while the other professed to be expert of the same for medical entrance examination.
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Needless to say that we all had to depend either on what was taught in school/college or upon our own effort to understand things through self study.
Of course, there were a few who could afford to take private tuition but they too did not disclose it publicly for understandable reasons.
Truly speaking; coaching centers or institutes in our times were conspicuous by their sheer absence only.
I often say with pride to my daughter- See me!; I have never taken private tution or gone to any coaching institutes during my whole student life or even during my days when I would prepare for competitive exams.
Perhaps she doesn't know that I,too, fancied to go for private tuition but in view of my father's limited income and a number of siblings all studying simultaneously,I could not afford it.
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The scenario was fast changing in the nineties dictated by economic reforms that favored privatization of industries.
Families' income and standard of living began to rise in the face of greater economic opportunities unleashed by these reforms.
Simultaneously yet stealthily without being noticed mafia elements saw in it a great opportunity to turn education into industry.
For this existing schools and colleges were felt necessary to be condemned in order that a new feeling among the students and guardians develops that admission to coaching opened in their town or locality is the minimum that they could do for the "education" of their children.
Things started taking a U turn in such a way that colleges or schools have lost their identity as a place of learning.
These are now reduced to merely buildings where, generally speaking,only non-academic activities of sorts take place. They do everything there save teaching.
Even where there are some teaching activities it is for namesake only.
Moreover,quality teaching is linked to the capacity to pay for it.
In our times it was not so.
Not to speak of character building, in many cases the entire teaching activities have disappeared from the place called school or college.
We see only exams (competitive exams) being conducted in the name of academics.
"Teaching" has been substituted by what is known as "coaching".
Should it be so? What do you think?
I still can't find the real meaning of "coaching".
What do they do and what for they coach? Also what do they coach?
In fact, It has been decades ago that
school or college surrendered their prime duty to coaching centers which are more apt to be called fleecing or exploitation centers to tell the truth. These coaching institutes are run by a group of graduates who are high on the urge to make money and but low on value.
They have indulgences, priority and purposes other than those which are required for all round development.
They can at best make students sum-solvers only.
They, being severed themselves from values,at best prepare students for being good at nothing save competing with each other on an unholy basis.
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Lakhs of rupees are being invested in coaching centers to get the return in crores.
Coaching has now become a great industry in the education sector where mafia elements today have field day.
They invest money in these centers otherwise also. They trap students or their parents towards adoption of unfair means. This unfair means is illegal to the extent of getting a seat for them in the government job or professional courses through tricks of sorts that includes paper leaks, impersonation etc.etc.
If it now becomes the headlines of the newspapers every now and then it should surprise none. We are reaping only what we sowed decades ago.
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I personally believe that these coachings have caused great damage to the children or youths on one hand and the entire education system on the other. It has choked the all round development of young ones in absence of proper education.
Coaching is not education nor is it equivalent to teaching.
Less said the better.
I don't know what you feel about them.
R.R.Prabhakar.
29.01.2023.
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