ANALYSIS
Tuesday, February 4, 2020, 7:18 AM IST
Rapacious coaching centres fly in the face of code of conduct
By Prof. Shiv Sethi
In a past few decades India has painfully witnessed a steep rise in the cases of farmer suicides. The statistics have jolted the nation badly. It is a lamentable state of affairs that needs immediate attention, but here the focus will be fixed on another equally vulnerable community － the members of which are unfortunately and unabatedly cutting their lives short with their own hands.
Ruefully referring to the aspirant community of the young students who harbour lofty dreams and when due to multiple reasons, which are present galore, they fail to achieve their goals and translate their dreams into reality.
Many of them, out of sheer desperation and despondency are driven to the deadly, dark dungeons of suicides. According to the latest available data from the National Crime Records Bureau, a student commits suicide every hour in India.
Erudite educationists put Kota (a city in the state of Rajasthan) on a high pedestal and call it a seat of learning. On the flip side, Kota is notoriously known as India’s suicide capital. Setting foot in the streets of the city, one marvels at the mushrooming growth of the IIT coaching centers in every nook and cranny.
The bustling town has more than one hundred and fifty coaching centers which are doing roaring business. First of all, the mind-boggling number of these institutes puts a big question mark on our educational system, which truly speaking, is in shambles. Kota is indeed a popular destination for those who are aspiring to secure their seats in some elite IITs and medical institutes.
Many of the aspirant students who take admissions in coaching classes have to undergo the rigorous study regime, for which all are neither prepared nor equipped with the needed set of skills. Much to our astonishment, the parent community has begun to pin very high hopes on their children.
It is the desire of almost every parent that his/her son or daughter must either become an engineer or a doctor. Afflicted with Peter principle, such parents are often unable to recognise the real aptitude and the latent potential of their children.
Blindfolded, they forcibly goad their children to tread the path of their own choice whereas the choice of the children is given the least consideration. Umpteen times, the consequences of such unwise decisions turn out to be disastrous and prove fatal for the students.
When a student is sent to some coaching institute in a city like Kota, the parents have to pay a hefty sum of fee along with other expenditure. Each institute charges around two lakhs as its annual fee burning a big hole on the shallow pockets of the parents. But the determined parents do not hesitate to go to any lengths.
Money is borrowed on high interest rates which puts equally high pressure on the tender minds of the students. Undeniably, in the absence of quality school education, all children are not properly schooled to encounter the tough challenges ahead.
The coaching institutes which can be rightly compared with the money-making educational mafia, are thriving. They have no considerations for the prescribed code of conduct, which says that an institute is bound to give an aptitude test to a student before admitting him to a particular course. This test can well determine the capabilities of a student, so the experts can be sure of the success chances of a student to a large extent.
Contrarily, in an absolute flagrant violation to the set norms, no such test is conducted, and even if it is, it will be nothing short of a perfunctory ritual. No one is denied admission on the basis of unsatisfactory performance in the aptitude test because the owners of these institutes are basically devious-minded businesses men. Their sole objective is to line their own pockets.
The fee once paid is not refundable. When a student sans prerequisite skills for such studies fails to deliver the goods, he tends to fall into the quagmire of depression. Without any psychiatric help, a depressed student finds himself stuck in a catch-22 situation. Out of which, many a time he comes out not alive, but dead.
Many students have lost their precious lives at Kota in the rat race of getting seat in the top-notch medical and IIT institutes. The saga of suicides is not only confined to the four walls of Kota. It has spread its tentacles outside, too. Many students who somehow manage to carve their niche in a medical college or an engineering institute have been seen succumbing to the pressures of gruelling courses.
Consequently, several of them take to the extreme means and put a full stop to the small sentence of their life. It is time for the government and the parents to come out of their hibernation. Parents must not forget the fact that their children are not of them, only from them. Children have every right to exercise their own choice when it comes to the matters of their life and career.
At the same time, it is also incumbent on the government that it adopts some robust measures to revamp our decaying education system. The faulty and flawed elementary education must be overhauled as it has failed badly in training students to take the tough call between engineering and medical professions. The fact can also not be gainsaid that our governments have always soft paddled the matters pertaining to the killer coaching industry.
In the absence of a stringent code of conduct for the coaching centres and its proper implementation, many innocent lives have been untimely snuffed out. All these coaching institutes must be governed by a regulatory government body so that they are not allowed to practise their unbridled rampant highhandedness and the flowers of beautiful lives are not mercilessly plucked.
The writer is HOD, English Language and Linguistics, Dev Samaj PG College For Women, Ferozepur
Rapacious coaching centres fly in the face of code of conduct
By Prof. Shiv Sethi
In a past few decades India has painfully witnessed a steep rise in the cases of farmer suicides. The statistics have jolted the nation badly. It is a lamentable state of affairs that needs immediate attention, but here the focus will be fixed on another equally vulnerable community － the members of which are unfortunately and unabatedly cutting their lives short with their own hands.
Ruefully referring to the aspirant community of the young students who harbour lofty dreams and when due to multiple reasons, which are present galore, they fail to achieve their goals and translate their dreams into reality.
Many of them, out of sheer desperation and despondency are driven to the deadly, dark dungeons of suicides. According to the latest available data from the National Crime Records Bureau, a student commits suicide every hour in India.
Erudite educationists put Kota (a city in the state of Rajasthan) on a high pedestal and call it a seat of learning. On the flip side, Kota is notoriously known as India’s suicide capital. Setting foot in the streets of the city, one marvels at the mushrooming growth of the IIT coaching centers in every nook and cranny.
The bustling town has more than one hundred and fifty coaching centers which are doing roaring business. First of all, the mind-boggling number of these institutes puts a big question mark on our educational system, which truly speaking, is in shambles. Kota is indeed a popular destination for those who are aspiring to secure their seats in some elite IITs and medical institutes.
Many of the aspirant students who take admissions in coaching classes have to undergo the rigorous study regime, for which all are neither prepared nor equipped with the needed set of skills. Much to our astonishment, the parent community has begun to pin very high hopes on their children.
It is the desire of almost every parent that his/her son or daughter must either become an engineer or a doctor. Afflicted with Peter principle, such parents are often unable to recognise the real aptitude and the latent potential of their children.
Blindfolded, they forcibly goad their children to tread the path of their own choice whereas the choice of the children is given the least consideration. Umpteen times, the consequences of such unwise decisions turn out to be disastrous and prove fatal for the students.
When a student is sent to some coaching institute in a city like Kota, the parents have to pay a hefty sum of fee along with other expenditure. Each institute charges around two lakhs as its annual fee burning a big hole on the shallow pockets of the parents. But the determined parents do not hesitate to go to any lengths.
Money is borrowed on high interest rates which puts equally high pressure on the tender minds of the students. Undeniably, in the absence of quality school education, all children are not properly schooled to encounter the tough challenges ahead.
The coaching institutes which can be rightly compared with the money-making educational mafia, are thriving. They have no considerations for the prescribed code of conduct, which says that an institute is bound to give an aptitude test to a student before admitting him to a particular course. This test can well determine the capabilities of a student, so the experts can be sure of the success chances of a student to a large extent.
Contrarily, in an absolute flagrant violation to the set norms, no such test is conducted, and even if it is, it will be nothing short of a perfunctory ritual. No one is denied admission on the basis of unsatisfactory performance in the aptitude test because the owners of these institutes are basically devious-minded businesses men. Their sole objective is to line their own pockets.
The fee once paid is not refundable. When a student sans prerequisite skills for such studies fails to deliver the goods, he tends to fall into the quagmire of depression. Without any psychiatric help, a depressed student finds himself stuck in a catch-22 situation. Out of which, many a time he comes out not alive, but dead.
Many students have lost their precious lives at Kota in the rat race of getting seat in the top-notch medical and IIT institutes. The saga of suicides is not only confined to the four walls of Kota. It has spread its tentacles outside, too. Many students who somehow manage to carve their niche in a medical college or an engineering institute have been seen succumbing to the pressures of gruelling courses.
Consequently, several of them take to the extreme means and put a full stop to the small sentence of their life. It is time for the government and the parents to come out of their hibernation. Parents must not forget the fact that their children are not of them, only from them. Children have every right to exercise their own choice when it comes to the matters of their life and career.
At the same time, it is also incumbent on the government that it adopts some robust measures to revamp our decaying education system. The faulty and flawed elementary education must be overhauled as it has failed badly in training students to take the tough call between engineering and medical professions. The fact can also not be gainsaid that our governments have always soft paddled the matters pertaining to the killer coaching industry.
In the absence of a stringent code of conduct for the coaching centres and its proper implementation, many innocent lives have been untimely snuffed out. All these coaching institutes must be governed by a regulatory government body so that they are not allowed to practise their unbridled rampant highhandedness and the flowers of beautiful lives are not mercilessly plucked.
The writer is HOD, English Language and Linguistics, Dev Samaj PG College For Women, Ferozepur
