 "Xi's China also banned private tutoring in 2021. Here's what happened next")
The Centre, on Thursday, issued new guidelines for coaching centres in a bid to regulate their unchecked growth and tackle the issue of rising suicide cases among students.
The step taken by the Ministry of Education appears to be triggered by two primary causes that brought a fresh spotlight over the booming industry, which is expected to reach a market value of $25 billion by 2025, according to the India Coaching Federation (ICF).
What are the new guidelines for coaching centres in India?
The education ministry's new guidelines on coaching centres include:
1)Instruction on refraining from misleading advertisements.
2)16-year minimum age limit to enrol students.
3)Penalty on charging exorbitant fees.
4)Mental well-being counselling mechanism, among other things.
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According to the new rules, the coaching centres must adhere to new refund rules and compensate the students if they decide to leave the course in the middle of its duration. They will also face a penalty of Rs 1 lakh if they charge unreasonable fees from the students. The institutes are also prohibited from increasing the course fee during the currency of the course.
To induce transparency, the government has instructed the coaching centre to put all the fees, tutors, courses, counselling systems and other related information on their websites.
When China banned private tutoring in 2021
Notably, President Xi Jinping had also implemented a sweeping ban on for-profit classes on school curriculum subjects in China in July 2021.
Xi's primary objective behind the "Double Reductions" campaign was to ease the burden on households by saving them the pain of paying "unreasonably" high tuition fees, which had turned the industry into a $100 billion market.
Implications of China's crackdown on private tuitions
The initial implication of the move was layoffs in the industry, resulting in unprecedented job losses. Many companies had been driven to bankruptcy due to the move, and billions of dollars were wiped from the industry, The Japan Times (JT) reported.
Notably, a more serious consequence of Xi's clampdown on the industry emerged later when it was found that the move had resulted in the spawning of expensive, underground tutoring services, profiting off the anxiety of millions of students and parents.
According to JT's 2022 report, some of the parents said they were paying "50 per cent more than they used to on in-person tutoring sessions" and only expected the costs to rise further.
The parents questioned the ban's effectiveness when the schools and colleges' primary selection criteria were solely based on the scores achieved in high-stakes entrance exams, a method also deeply entrenched in the Indian education system.
What do experts suggest on the issue?
To deal with this issue, experts suggest a more comprehensive approach and looking at the bigger picture. Andy Xie, former chief Asia economist for Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong, had then suggested "The solution to be an adjustment in parental expectation."
The India Coaching Federation (ICF) also lists a key challenge as the industry being highly unregulated. "…anyone can call themselves a coach. Coaching profession is not regulated. So, most of the coaches are untrained and incompetent. They are not only damaging the reputation of the industry but also not able to provide the expected results to the people they coach…," the ICF president Dhirendra Gautam notes in a LinkedIn collaborative post.
Kota suicides prompt action against coaching centres
The guidelines follow in the wake of rising suicides among students. Rajasthan's Kota saw as many as 26 suicides by students in 2023, nearly double compared to 2022, when the toll stood at 14. The mental health experts attributed this concern to peer pressure, academic stress, and inadequate resources. Meanwhile, then Congress-ruled Rajasthan government had blamed "affair" and "parental pressure to perform" as the cause of suicides.
The second reason the coaching industry has remained in the spotlight is its unchecked growth and lack of safety standards. Notably, a fire at a coaching centre in Delhi's Mukherjee Nagar in June last year had resulted in 61 students getting hurt. It was later revealed that the institute did not even have a fire no-objection certificate (NOC), as no one applied for one.
Days later, the Delhi Fire Services (DFS), on the instructions of the Delhi High Court, had found "discrepancies" in fire safety norms in as many as 130 coaching centres across the national capital, The Indian Express had reported.
(With agency inputs)