Deepak Dwivedi
THE toxic environment of coaching centres, particularly in Rajasthan’s Kota, has been playing havoc with the young minds. Home to the coaching market worth over Rs 5,000 crore, Kota has become a killing field where dreams die at the altar of unreasonable expectations fuelled by parental and peer pressure. A sense of numbness has set in with several cases of student suicides being reported every year for over a decade now. At least six students are reported to have died by suicide in the town since the start of this year.
Home to prominent coaching hubs, Rajasthan has long struggled with student suicides. Each year, lakhs of students enrol in the mushrooming coaching centres across the state, with Kota alone estimated to be attracting over two lakh annually. Typically, the coaching centres operate in a largely unregulated environment, luring lakhs of students every year with promises of guaranteed success in competitive examinations such as NEET, IIT-JEE, IIM entrance tests, and CLAT. The false claims and high-pressure environment fostered by many of these institutes result in widespread disillusionment and despair among students when outcomes do not match expectations. Tragically, this often leads to heightened stress levels and, in several instances, even suicides.
Against this grim backdrop, a new legislation introduced by the Rajasthan Government to regulate the mushrooming coaching centres is a welcome move. Hopefully, the Rajasthan Coaching Centres (Control and Regulation) Bill will become an effective tool to curb the menace resulting from the commercialisation of education. Once passed, Rajasthan will become the first state in the country to implement a comprehensive legislation regulating coaching centres. The Bill mandates that coaching centres with over 50 students must register and meet specific standards, in a bid to ensure greater accountability. It also calls for banning class segregation based on performance, introducing fee regulation with a refund provision and imposing penalties of up to Rs 5 lakh for non-compliance.
The Bill was formulated in response to Central Government guidelines issued in January last year for the registration and regulation of coaching centres. These guidelines were circulated to all state governments and Union Territories to support the development of a robust legal framework.
The proposed Rajasthan law, however, does not specify the age criteria recommended by the Central Government guidelines, which state that coaching centres should not enrol students below the age of 16. The draft of the Bill released last October did mention an age limit. Addressing the key issue of mental health, the Bill mandates the coaching centres to provide psychological counselling for students, complete classes within the stipulated time, and provide remedial support for students requiring additional academic assistance. Though there is a scope for improvement, the Rajasthan’s Bill is the right step in checking the predatory industry. Other states must follow suit.
During the discussion on the Bill in the state legislature, some of the ruling party legislators and their counterparts in the Opposition criticised the Government for removing the minimum age requirement and easing several compliance measures in the Bill tabled in the state Assembly to control and regulate the coaching centres in the state. Following suggestions from the legislators, the state’s Deputy Chief Minister and Higher Education Minister has agreed to send the Bill to a select committee for review.
