Move to turn up the heat on small training institutes

Scrapping of entrance exams for admissions to professional courses

The move of the Tamil Nadu government to scrap entrance exams for admissions to professional courses is bound to turn up the heat on small educational training institutes focused only on Tamil Nadu Professional Courses Entrance Examination (TNPCEE).

One of the leading players in the educational training segment, Madhumati N, director, Aspire Learning told Business Standard, "We operate in diverse verticals such as GRE, GMAT, MBAs and MCAs. We also train students for admissions to Indian Institute of Technology, Indian Institute of Management etc. The impact on us would be limited."

Aspire, a Rs 15 crore turnover company, recently acquired Bangalore-based Scholar's League, an MBA entrance training institute.

"Almost 20 per cent of our turnover will be affected in 2005-06 by the scrapping of TNPCEE. We have been diversifying into other segments. Students trained for TNPCEE contributed 40 per cent of the turnover last year," added Madhumati.

When reached for comments, Brilliant Tutorials Pvt Ltd, another popular Chennai-based training institute for entrance exams, however, declined to comment. Brilliant trains students for all competitive exams including GRE GMAT, TOEFL, IAS, MBBS, BE, MBA and MCA.

Madhumati says it will be the small players and a large number of unorganised players focused only on providing training for TNPCEE who will be the worst hit.

It is estimated that about 1.68 lakh students appeared for TNPCEE in 2004. The training market for TNPCEE on a conservative basis is estimated to be worth about Rs 60 crore, remarks Madhumati.

The fee structure for these training courses for TNPCEE ranges from Rs 4,000 to Rs 8,000 depending on the duration of the course.

In Tamil Nadu, there are about 242 engineering colleges with 70,000 seats while it is just 1,500 medicine seats available in the state. Over the last three years, many engineering seats have been going vacant due to the mushrooming of a large number of engineering colleges.

A principal of a private school says that the entrance exams are used to test the knowledge of a student which is essential for admitting them to professional courses.

With the scrapping of the TNPCEE, she says that the students knowledge will be limited only to the Plus-2 books and will be very "bookish". Madhumati also points out that entrance exams are conducted to test the speed, ability to think and accuracy in finding solutions of the students.

Madhumati says that it would be better to have a uniform entrance exam in country for testing the knowledge of the students. However, academicians opine that students in rural areas who are denied basic library facilities and coaching centres will be unable to cope with a national uniform entrance exam.

Another four-year-old institute, Triumphant Institute of Management Education Pvt Ltd with 100 branches entering this segment of training of students to professional courses this year, did not want to comment.

One of the significant reasons for the state government's move comes from the fact that rural students were losing out in entrance exams in getting admissions to professional courses due to lack of required coaching centres.

The Tamil Nadu government has decided that the new policy of admissions to various professional institutions for undergraduate courses will depend only on the marks obtained in the Plus-2 examination.

Earlier, admission to professional courses depended on the results of the Plus-2 results as well as common entrance exam, which has been scrapped.