There is a
proverb in Hindi which when translated
into English, reads ‘Even a
refuse-dumping place has in time a good day’.
Quite a few competent teachers are now making
money from the coaching
institutes/colleges/schools run for the coaching
of students for the competitive
examinations for the entrance to Medical/Engineering Colleges. Such coaching schools
have mushroomed in the towns of
Northern India and probably elsewhere too.
Barring some known and established
institutions which provide coaching on a
planned scale, most of them are run just as
class-room teaching where the number of
students may vary from ten to some two
hundred in a class. Some institutions provide
coaching by post and also serve as
examining bodies to let the candidates know where
they stand. The fees for
established institutes for any type of coaching
may vary from Rs 30,000 to Rs 50,000.
For most of the coaching schools
(incidentally good!), the fees may vary from
Rs 3000 to Rs 10,000 for a package
teaching of a student in a group for three
days in a week spread over about six
months. Parents in their eagerness to see their
wards become engineers/doctors somehow
manage to pay the high fees, send them
to these coaching schools and consider
their job to be over. The wards too in a
rat race not to lag behind go to these
colleges/schools just to satisfy themselves that they
have taken the coaching. How many
parents are competent to assess
whether their wards get the return for their
money they spend, whether their wards are
improving and preparing themselves with a
competitive spirit? How many of
the candidates are competent enough to
make an assessment of themselves at any
time during the coaching and modify
and improve their method of
preparation and study? The fact
is that most of these institutes are no
better than providing good classroom teaching.
If students go to coaching
institutes, either they are not serious in their
class-rooms, or the class-room teaching
itself is not up to the mark. In case the
latter is true, are the parents aware of
this? Why don’t they collectively bring this
to the notice of the school administration? Moreover,
the coaching done in
these institutes is a misnomer. It is no
coaching at all. (It would be known as
coaching if it is one to one coaching or one
teacher for two/three students.) In such a
situation the fees paid by the parents to
an institute or to a teacher is a largesse.
Unfortunately the parents and their wards only
superficially know that these entrance
examinations are competitive. They are
not only competitive, but highly
competitive. Candidates securing more than 90%
marks at the Intermediate level are not
sure of their admission to the Medical
and Engineering Colleges through the
entrance tests. The preparation for these
examinations has become highly technical.
It requires intelligence, hard work and
extremely methodical and regular study.
Answering question papers require
quick reflexes of the mind and good
memory. With these stringent
requirements, candidates securing less than 90%
marks (say between 85 to 0%) at
the Intermediate level, have to examine
themselves very objectively whether
they, with all resources, can rise up to the
competitive level. The parents feel if
they spend money, encourage their wards, and
their wards work hard, it may be
possible for their wards to fulfil their reams,
but the parents forget that there is a limit
to the extent of improvement in the
preparedness of their wards for the
examination and this depends on the capacity
of the wards. I feel that it is the
competence (intelligence plus capacity) of the
candidate rather than coaching which
takes him/her through the test because
coaching is a common denominator for all
who take to coaching and succeed.
Parents are therefore advised to get their
wards objectively assessed by a couple of
teachers and apply their own mind
before pushing them for any coaching for the
entrance tests for admission to
Engineering/Medical Colleges. It is better for
candidates of lesser merit to look for
alternative avenues. The two
professions, Engineering and Medicine,
are highly specialized and those who
do not have a temperament to serve them
with devotion, cannot be made to
acquire the required attitude even by
study and training. Our science management in higher
education must make
scientific service more respectable, lucrative,
challenging and self-satisfying so as to
stop the drain of the cream of scientific
talent to the two professions.
Y. K. GUPTA
/5 Phase
II,
Shivalik
Nagar,
Hardwar
249 403, India
CURRENT
SCIENCE, VOL. 83, NO. 11, 10 DECEMBER 2002