Government Panel Suggests Regulatory Body for Coaching Institutions But Seems Unlikely

COURTESY: TELEGRAPH

The government is unlikely to crack down on coaching institutes, although a committee set up by the IIT Council had recommended a regulatory regime.

Sources familiar with the government's possible approach said the HRD ministry would reject the Ashok Mishra panel's suggestion to set up an All India Council for Coaching for Entrance Examinations (AICCEE) to regulate fees charged by coaching institutes and ensure a minimum standard.

The panel, headed by IIT Roorkee chairman Mishra, had said coaching was a lucrative "industry" worth approximately Rs 24,000 crore a year.

Two members of the panel argued that when technical education regulator AICTE could regulate private engineering colleges, the proposed AICCEE would do the same job for coaching institutions.

The AICCEE, they said, should allow only those institutes that maintain a good faculty and facilities and don't make false claims.

The Mishra panel, set up to examine whether the existing two-tier test - the JEE -Main for admissions to NITs and the JEE -Advanced for IITs - for taking in BTech students could be merged, said the purpose of education was mental refinement, not passing an entrance exam.

But Satya Narayanan R., chairman of Career Launcher, a coaching institute, said the government could not restrict individuals or institutes from offering a service against a fee mutually agreed upon by the provider and the client.

Many state governments, he said, provide funds to students from socially disadvantaged groups so that they can enrol in coaching institutes to crack exams that have to be cleared to enter the IITs, other top tech schools or the civil services.

"Coaching will never stop as long as there is a gap between demand for good institutions and scant supply," Narayanan said.

Earlier, another panel, headed by Rajat Moona, director-general of the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, had found that the impact of coaching had increased since the system of giving weightage to board marks was introduced in 2013 for admissions to NITs.

It said that 14.63 per cent of candidates who appeared for the 2012 All India Engineering Entrance Examination, which became the JEE Main in 2013, had admitted to having been coached. In 2013 and 2014, this percentage increased to 18.15 and 18.89.