How new Rajasthan Bill hopes to regulate coaching centres, curb suicides

“Over the past two decades, the State of Rajasthan has witnessed an unchecked proliferation of coaching centres. These centres often operate in a largely unregulated environment, luring lakhs of students every year with promises of guaranteed success in competitive examinations such as NEET, IIT-JEE, IIM entrance tests, and CLAT. The false claims and high-pressure environment fostered by many of these institutes result in widespread disillusionment and despair among students when outcomes do not match expectations. Tragically, this often leads to heightened stress levels and, in several instances, even suicides,” the government said, adding that it “recognises the gravity of this situation.”

The Bill essentially aims to register, control, regulate and determine minimum standards and requirements for registration of coaching centres; to take care of interests of students and provide them career guidance and psychological counselling for mental well-being; to take appropriate measures to provide security and reduce stress among students enrolled in the coaching centres; and to provide better academic support and holistic development of students in the preparation of different competitive examinations and admission into specialised institutions.

As part of the law, a Rajasthan Coaching Centres (Control and Regulation) Authority will be constituted at the state and district level having the same powers as that of civil court. The state’s higher education secretary will be the ex-officio chairman of the state level authority while the district collector will be the chairman of the district level authority. The authority will have the mandate to enforce the regulations under the law and penalise the offenders.

The state-level authority will have representatives from all the education departments, the Director General of Police or his nominee, a psychiatrist, and representatives from the coaching centres and parents of the students, among others. The district level authorities will have the chief medical and health officer, a psychiatrist, representatives from coaching centres, parents of students, etc. as members.

The Bill, once enacted, will make it mandatory for all the coaching centres to be registered, while the existing ones will have to get registered within three months of the Act coming into force; each branch will have to get registered separately.

To be eligible for registration, the Bill states that the coaching centres cannot engage tutors having qualification less than graduation, make misleading promises or guarantee of rank or good marks to parents/students for enrolling them in the coaching centre, if it has less than a minimum one square meter area per student, and hire any person who has been convicted “for any offence involving moral turpitude”.

However, the Bill has conspicuously removed the 16-year age criteria for enrolment of students. In line with the January 2024 guidelines by the Ministry of Education, an earlier draft version of the Bill had specified that only students who are 16 years old, or have completed secondary school examination, can be enrolled in coaching centres.

 To ensure transparency, the coaching centres will also be required to have a website with details of the qualifications of tutors, courses/curriculum, duration of completion, hostel facilities (if any), and the fees being charged, easy exit policy, fee refund policy, number of students who have undertaken coaching from the centre and percentage of number of students who finally succeeded in getting admission in higher education institutions etc.

They should also have “sufficient infrastructure” in proportion to students enrolled, adhere to fire safety codes, have a first aid kit and medical assistance/treatment facility, have a fully electrified and well-ventilated building, have a complaint box, etc.

For better mental health of students, coaching centres will also have to establish a mechanism “for immediate intervention to provide targeted and sustained assistance to students in distress and stressful situations.” Additionally, they will have to make efforts to complete the classes in the stipulated time, provide remedial or support classes to student as per requirement, chalk out a time-table to allow the students to relax, ensure weekly off for students as well as tutors, not conduct assessment-test/exam on the day after weekly off, customise leave in such a manner that the students are able to connect with their family during the important and popular festivals, and conduct coaching classes in a way that it is not excessive for a student and it should not be more than 5 hours in a day.

With numerous complaints of students not getting their money back in case they leave midway, the Bill says that the student “shall be refunded from out of the fees deposited earlier for the remaining period, on a pro-rata basis within ten days” and that the same applies to the hostel and mess fee. “Under no circumstances,” the fee can be increased during an ongoing course, it says.