The heart-rending incident of three civil services aspirants drowning in a flooded basement of a coaching centre in the Indian capital is a wake-up call for all. While the shocking event has again exposed the civic administration of its inefficiency and corruption, and the regulatory bodies of their poor oversight, an urgent need now is to scan the conduct of the coaching centres running across the country.

It is common knowledge that, in India, there is a desperation to clear competitive exams to either enter premier academic institutions or get reputable government jobs. In this backdrop, along with the aspirants, their entire family, friends, extended kinship, are invested in the aspirant’s future, through consistent financial and moral support. The prevailing emotions, sentiments and desperation around the exams, naturally provide fertile ground for coaching centres to leverage, mushroom and flourish. No surprise, their expanse, both physical and digital, has grown significantly across all Indian states.

Selling 'secret sauce' to crack exams

The coaching centres promise, overtly or covertly, to pass on a ‘secret sauce’ that can help the aspirants master the art of cracking the exams and game the system. Given the wide publicity and hoardings of these centres claiming their contribution in getting their candidates crack the test, it is tempting for any new aspirant to fall for the gimmicks. The claims, on a closer look, appear half-truths, spurious or hollow. Rival claims, overlapping cases, slant or limited interfaces of such successful aspirants with the centres, successful candidates’ own experiences and revelations, well reveal the level of exaggeration and meretriciousness in the grandiose assertions.  

While such tall and often misleading claims are understandable in the background of the cut-throat competition amongst the centres themselves, and demands of their overambitious business models, their conduct in running the administrative affairs is grossly unacceptable. It is not that the coaching centres lack financial resources given the huge fees charged from aspirants, and investors’ money that many big centres garner. But, as the primary motive is to milk the aspirants by taking undue advantage of their desperation, ethics in business takes a back seat.

Glaring failings of the centres

Clearly, while on the one hand, the secret sauce is elusive, on the other, the day-to-day experience of the aspirants, in terms of availability of even basic civic amenities, is horrid.

On both these aspects, some of the glaring failings of the centres are worth noting:

a. Critical Thinking finds a short shrift: The competitive exams are seen as an extension of the school/college/university exams, where examinees get incentivized or rewarded for rote learning. In this ecosystem, no need is felt to develop critical thinking, a reflective mind or spirit of inquiry. Again, no sincere effort is made to teach inter-linkages across streams of knowledge. The so-called “stratagem”, the centres promise to offer, hardly works. The exams for IITs, IIMs, Civil Services, in particular, are strong pointers on how traditional pedagogy and mindset of our educational institutions towards learning is found severely inadequate and deficient, and call for a paradigm shift towards critical thinking and building wider perspectives. But, despite the expectations, opportunity and resources, the centres, by and large, have failed to cultivate the kind of mental quality and make-up needed to do well in these exams.

b. Money Making obsession by milking hapless aspirants: The aspirants are induced and inducted by the coaching centres as “clients”, not as seekers of better future or as potential human resource/assets for the country. Their motive is clear-these clients, desperate to succeed, should be milked to the hilt, never mind all sorts of unscrupulous and exploitative practices. It is indeed ironic that while selling dreams to millions of aspirants of a secret sauce of success, the centres themselves, in the process, have found a secret sauce for roaring business success.

c. Terrible physical conditions of the classes: The terrible conditions the aspirants face, be it poor lighting, absence or non-functioning ACs, unhygienic washrooms, damp and unsafe conditions. Running classes in the dungeon/basement hardly concern them.  Instead, what concerns them is quick monetization through maximum enrolments, running classes by dumping maximum students in a single classroom, making unrealistic or false promises etc.

c. Absence of value-sets: The coaching centres, in pursuit of their commercial considerations, get afflicted with vices that can be inimical to the formative minds of the young aspirants. Rat-race, unethical way of money-making, absence of empathy (for aspirants and their parents), as negative examples, can adversely influence the mind of an aspirant who is ideally expected to abhor these traits in her future career, as a promising professional or civil servant.

Need for redemption

The process of imparting instructions in the name of coaching must not be seen in a silo - as primarily makers of scoring strategy - but as guides to holistic and wholesome path for preparing an aspirant to meet the intensity and rigour of the competitive exams. Their business conduct ought to reflect the ethos of transparency, openness, and empathy. For all this to accomplish, the coaching centres would do well first to look inward, introspect, and revamp some of their existing systems and practices.

The following five lessons for the coaching centres may help:

#Setting up an internal ombudsman: The coaching centres should consider setting up not only a grievance cell, but also constitute an Internal Ombudsman, by hiring a person of high respectability and integrity.  The centres, having a large presence in the city/country, may take a lead. Indeed, adoption of best practices and standards by big players in the business will have a demonstration effect on other small players.

#Sensitization course for top management and faculty: There should be a sensitization program for management personnel and, more particularly, faculties. Suitable refresher courses, on suitable intervals, are needed for them to re-energize, re-learn and reflect. Certain core values and code of ethics need to be the touchstone of any progressive business, more specifically, for those in the business of learning and academics.

#Evaluation of faculty by the aspirants: Faculties should be rated continuously by the aspirants. Domain expertise is very much needed, but their energy level, humaneness, animated, passionate style of delivery, and world- view, are equally important. High performing and top-rated faculties should be rewarded. This way, the aspirants can get value for their money and the centres can retain a brilliant faculty for a long time.

#Handholding the aspirants to handle setbacks: The success ratio in the competitive exams in India is too tough. Large number of aspirants fail to clear despite multiple attempts. For such candidates, the centres may run free counseling cells for guidance on alternative career paths. It is important that such disillusioned youngsters, otherwise having potential and merit to create a mark elsewhere, remain optimistic and do not develop a defeatist mindset in life. This way, the centres can proactively act as a friend, philosopher, and guide.

Need for stricter compliances

The coaching federation or body, apart from overseeing the affairs of the centres closely, can also frame guidelines or code of conduct for strict compliance. Reforms must come from within. Such proactive initiatives will serve as virtue-signaling that they, as collective entities, are willing to subject themselves to the tenets of transparency, accountability and empathy.

The above lessons can help redeem the coaching centres by enhancing their credibility in the eyes of aspirants, their parents, and society at large. Then, the coaching process, by becoming a grooming process, can turn out to be a memorable experience for the millions of aspirants in their arduous journey to achieve success in career and life.

By taming their greed to maximize profits by hook or by crook, and developing critical thinking and humaneness, coaching centres can emerge as friend, philosopher and guide for millions of students and aspirants

(The writer is a former banker and adviser, UPSC. Views are personal. He can be contacted at rkrishnasinha@hotmail.com)