DailyPost 2856
HAS COACHING TAKEN OVER SCHOOL EDUCATION?
The declaration of results city wise and centre wise the NEET 2024 exam as directed by the Supreme Court for the purposes of finding out the impact of paper leak, throws up other facts as well. Mostly, Supreme Court on the data available on the table, interpreted by both the warring parties and their capability to convince legally, about the strength of the respective stands, will help decide the case. Localised vs mass impact of paper leak is the issue in question. This would lead to the decision on reNEET. While this would be decided by the highest court of the land, there are bigger issues plaguing our educational system.
What would always remain on the table is the question of school education vs coaching and how the schooling more so in the 11th and 12th classes can be made relevant. That the coaching has taken over school education is to state the obvious. Starting from the mecca of coaching Kota, it has spread all around the place, making coaching as necessary complement to plus two education. Or has it gone the other way round, the customary school education has become a complimentary to coaching. There is nothing to doubt the primacy of coaching. It is reported that a Gujarat girl who scored 705 / 720 marks in NEET 2024 failed in class 12.
Such examples do not augur well for both the schooling system and the professional institutions, where they intend to get in. This manifests a total breakdown of our educational system, where a student fails in a supposedly lower level exam while excelling in national level cut throat competitive exam at the same level. This is a challenge our educational system is facing. Additionally, some cities and some centres are taking away the major part of the cake. It has gone to an extent that those locations / centres are being called factories. Sikar and Namkaal have added their names in the NEET factory cities.
Then what are our regular schools doing? What education are they providing and why those hefty fees? Top schools don’t figure anywhere; either renowned school chains or single reputed schools in various cities / towns etc. If the regular schools don’t serve any purpose, the concerned boards should start a system of providing affiliation to these coaching bodies. At least the student will not have the rigour to do a double drama. That too undeniably adds to the stress levels of these kids. The coaching bodies will get rid of the schools they have to necessarily piggy back on. The regular schools can be freed of courses mainly science to start with, where they are visibly unable to provide competence to the students to clear national level competitive exams for professional colleges. That is precisely the aim for both the students and the parents. For what purpose are dissimilar systems functioning? Is it just to run an industry within another education industry? A sad state of affairs indeed!
THE COMPREHENSIVE POACHING OF REGULAR SCHOOLING BY COACHING INSTITUTES IS COMPLETE. IT’S TIME TO MANDATE IT LEGALLY.
Sanjay Sahay
Have a nice evening.