DailyPost 2684
BAN COACHING
Coaching is one experience, which all Indians are aware of, even if you have not gone through the exercise. It would be next to impossible to find a middle-class Indian not have anybody close, who has not gone through the wonder mill called coaching? It seems to have become a necessity of a level that the schools can be dispensed with and not coaching. By now eleventh and twelfth standards of CBSE, ICSE, PUC, Intermediate or any other undergraduate qualifying course /exam has become adjuncts of the infamous big names of the coaching world. If everyone has to do coaching, then what are schools meant for?
If all the students have to reach the level of the IIT entrance or other similar competitive exams in whatever field, why are 12th exams not being made fit enough to foot the bill. Whether by design or default, the end result is the generation after generation of young Indians are caught in this quagmire, which can best be avoided. If all the prevalent systems; curriculum, pedagogy, board & competitive entrance exams are fine, then the conspicuous conclusion is that it is broken system and no one is bothered about it.
There is no denying the fact that the coaching industry is way bigger than the worst of the commercial school education, which still has sanity. The coaching industry in an outright industry which has nothing to do with education, it is the amalgam of worst form of education and the worst form of industry. Might be coaching started at some point in time to fill up some gaps in the educational curriculum or to help weak students, but now it has developed into a dinosaur, where they are preying upon anything that comes close to them; students, teachers, schools, school managements, boards, parents and what not?
If the 8news persistently coming from Kota is not ringing real death knell* to our educational system, nothing will. If it does not impact anyone in the decision-making process and the civil society treats these suicides with the same disdain, as governments, where are we headed for? Does it not sound like a different variant of the gun menace of the US, which has been taking lives for so long? The model of coaching and the fate of Byju’s leaves nothing to doubt. This is the fate of the poster boy of Indian coaching. From Kota to Mukherjee Nagar of the Civil Services fame cannot be definition of student’s / aspirant’s life in India. Can schools be left scot-free and so also the exam conducting bodies? Can they all not come on the same page? Can mismanagement of education be allowed to this level, where generations are sacrificed at the altar of coaching. Ban coaching first, rest will follow. Heavens are not going to fall. We will be forced to find a solution, if there are any gaps in the curriculum?
IF COACHING CAN DO MAGIC, THESE MAGICIANS BE BROUGT TO THE REGULAR SCHOOLING SYSTEM.
Sanjay Sahay
Have a nice evening.