Education, as a ticket to ride

The rise of the twin evils of tuition and coaching has occurred primarily because of two factors: the decline of the old educational system and the new rise in global competitiveness. Every slum resident is spending a large part of her income on ‘tuition’ because the education provided by government schools is just not good enough. She spends an average of about Rs 3,000 per child per year. Higher up the ladder, middleclass parents are spending huge sums (up to Rs 50,000 per student per year) on coaching classes to clear entrance examinations to prestigious courses of study. Gone are the halcyon days of just 20 years ago when ‘tuition’ was supplementary, a last resort to help students considered weak. Today, many teachers make several times their entire salary from tuitions and hence rarely put the same kind of effort into their regular teaching jobs. Irked by this trend, Amartya Sen even suggested tutoring offered by salaried school teachers be banned.

While tutoring may have always been around, coaching was unheard of earlier. The school system sufficed to send the brighter students to elite courses. Others went on to a decent college. Colleges admitted students without entrance exams requiring intensive coaching and turned out professionals fit for the myriad occupations that a dynamic society requires. Contrast then with now. School premises are converted into coaching factories. Many students bunk school to concentrate on their expensive coaching, perceived as the ticket to success. What is shocking is that after school tuition classes have become a way of life at every stage: toddlers as well as those aspiring for admission to professional colleges are caught in its net. Instead of being sent out to play, the very young are packed off to tuition centres, while high school children are closeted in coaching classes. This has its negative fallout in the personalities of the children. No wonder, the social conscience needed for a healthy society is left by the wayside and talented teachers are no longer in schools but in coaching firms.

Why has this trend spread its tentacles all over? For four simple reasons. First, the general perception that education is the avenue for upward mobility. Second, a serious decline in the quality of school and college education. Third, an overwhelming dependence on centralised examinations for admission to elite courses of study. And to complete the Catch-22 situation, these arcane examinations are responsible for the demand for coaching. Fourth, the number of institutions to which students can be admitted to (compared to the number of aspirants) is small. Thus, coaching is seen as the only “sure shot” mechanism of beating the system in which the probability of success is less than 5 per cent (even less for the IITs).

The decline of the university system, with only a few colleges deemed worthwhile, has further enhanced the burden of competitiveness on students and parents. As opposed to an undergraduate degree in the arts or sciences, only professional courses in engineering, medicine, management, architecture or design command respect.

This warped educational system is not without great social costs. The large middle class sees professional education and government jobs as its ticket to success. The lakhs of rupees spent by parents on coaching is seen as in investment. This investment can only be worthwhile if costs are recovered; and cost recovery for the average middleclass son is through two traditional avenues — public sector jobs or dowries. In other words, coaching enhances and encourages existing corrupt practices. Add to this the tragedy of lost childhoods. It is these and other negative consequences that we need to ponder over in order to understand how this monstrously large and new education system, unless checked, will devour the social fabric of a society which now perceives education as the avenue of success.

The writer is an assistant professor at IIT, New Delhi