Kota Factory in Reality: The "real cost" of Coaching Industry in India

A recent popular web series by TVF (The Viral Fever, a company indulged in creating digital content) named as ‘The Kota Factory’ had stark similarities with the real life coaching industry of the country. The black and white dull cinematography of the show portrayed the mood of lakhs of students, as they identified themselves with the characters like Vaibhav Pandey, ‘Meena’, Uday, Meenal and ‘Jeetu Bhaiya’. 

As aptly depicted, our coaching industry is expanding at a staggering pace. Once considered as taboo, availing coaching now appears as a permanent feature of every high school going student’s life. There exist various reasons which students and their guardians ascribes to, in order to justify their demand for coaching. The most prominent one being the inability of the mainstream schooling in preparing students beyond the requirement of the board exams. With more focus on securing a seat in a prestigious college through an all India entrance examination, the relevance of board examination is reducing day by day. For most of them, school is unfortunately an escapism from the gruelling environment of coaching classes. School mark sheets are reduced into mere piece of paper, which do not promise anything substantial in future. Hunger to constantly perform impeccably in academics initiates a frenzy race among students, and it is at this juncture, the coaching industry encashes on their insecurities. Nevertheless, peer pressure is also one of the major drivers of demand of this industry, as guardians and students follow the herd mentality of coaching, even if the student is well off in the academics and may not require any additional help. The guardians in some of the cases, finds coaching as a variable of status symbol and prestige in the society. 

A large number of students in our country attend coaching along with the mainstream schooling. They invest a substantial chunk of their productive time in shuffling between these two institutions. This arrangement of learning, leaves very less residual time for non-academic activities. It is very unfortunate that in this race to perform better, the sheer joy of learning is replaced by brutal marks thirsty competition. The consequence of this ‘exam oriented’ learning is far reaching, with students lacking ability to grow holistically.

The question of regulation:

The expansion of the coaching industry in the country has seen an inverse relation vis-à-vis the investment in public schooling. Increasing realisation by an average Indian, that investment in education yields dividend, increases their aspiration for a better future. The industry works parallel to the mainstream schooling, creating not only mental trauma for the students, but also for the parents who toil hard to make sure that their kids are getting a decent standard of education. Access to coaching highly depends on the financial viability of the households, and in a society like ours which is still mired by the issues of caste, gender and class, coaching adds on to the existing layers of such problems. For most of the middle class, poor and the marginalised, attending coaching is an uphill task. It’s a dual burden for them, as on the one hand, the apathy of the government run schools continues (with increase in the cost of mainstream private schooling), and on the other hand, the inability to afford coaching dents their confidence. 

Currently, their do not exists any coaching specific regulatory framework, which checks on the unprecedented growth of this industry. With the advent of technology, the ambit of coaching is increasing every day, as digital video platform of coaching joining the existing brick and mortar set up. 

The question which needs attention is simply this- can we envisage a just and equitable access to high quality education, without taking any formal cognize of this industry? The time is ripe to take this forward and deliberate upon this idea. The onus lies on our lawmakers, so that they can churn out a fair and transparent coaching regulation bill, taking educationalists and civil society on board. The recent publication of the Draft National Education Policy 2019 and its acceptance that “the current nature of examinations - and the resulting coaching culture of today - are doing much harm to students” is a positive step in that direction. 

But the real cost of learning is something which lies beyond the financial argument. It is important to observe that the ‘fear of failure’ even after attending coaching, looms large among the students. Performance pressure leads to a situation, where they are constantly mired by dreadful environment of ‘perform or perish’. In this exploitative order, the quest for knowledge takes a back seat, and the euphoria to succeed in the upcoming examination is what everyone attempts for. The current order does not attach any value to the heterogeneous ways of learning, and undermines the spirit of inquisitiveness which our young minds possess. 

One of the character of TVF’s Kota Factory argues- “bachhey do saal mein Kota se nikal jaatey h, Kota saalo taq bachho se nahi nikalta...” (Children leave Kota in 2 years, but Kota doesn’t leave children for years) fairly summarises everything that is wrong with the current culture of learning, in which we all are stakeholders.