`Govt must formulate policy on coaching classes’

The court order had asked the government to monitor these tutorials and every university in Maharashtra to ensure that the existing rules barring lecturers from indulging in the business of education be stopped. But the authorities appear to have ignored the instructions.

Meanwhile, AISFactivists today demonstrated in front of Chate’s coaching classes (CIDCO branch), protesting against the commercialisation of education.

The students took a strong exception to Chate’s marketing concepts like releasing a spate of ads as if they were running a big industry.The AISF agitation, led by Dr Ram Baheti, has now declared a phased agenda to root out the rot. Despite allegations that it is selectively attacking only some coaching classes, among other things, the AISF says it will press ahead with its agenda. It has therefore planned a seminar to provide a platform for discussion.

The Indian Express spoke to Baheti, who is also secretary of the Communist Party of India’s Aurangabad unit and who has also been vice-president of the Maharashtra unit of the AISF for five years.Q) How did you plan your agitation?

A) We were the first to welcome the Bombay High Court order barring college lecturers from conducting coaching classes. The next logical set was to try and ensure itsimplementation.

We submitted memoranda to the commissioner of police, vice-chancellor of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Marthwada University, the deputy director of education and assistant director of education, hoping this would spur some action against coaching classes which have been blatantly flouting the order. However, nothing came of it.

Deputy Director of Education M R Deshmukh was the only one to personally accept the memorandum from the students.

Q) Is this why you adopted an aggressive stance?

A) This agitation cannot yield anything without being aggressive. You see, we began our action on July 8, and by now almost all college lecturers have stopped going to private classes. We believe that without government agencies getting serious the practice cannot be curbed.

Q) It appears that the AISF had some pre-planned targets when it began its `raids’ on coaching classes. The bigger players have not been touched while the smaller ones have been at the receiving end.

A) Preparing a listof all colleges lecturers in Aurangabad involved in such classes was a massive task. After our first raid on Paripurthi classes, we were under tremendous pressure from students, parents and teachers to raid specific classes like Vidyalankar and Chate. But that wasn’t possible. However, we have tried to ensure that lecturers from various colleges were covered by our raids.

Q) What did you discover in the process?

A) We found that classes are run with the active connivance of college managements.

Q) What is the next phase of your agitation?

A) We have stopped our raids now and shall henceforth demonstrate before classes like Chate and Agade, who pump in crores of rupees in ad campaigns to attract students. If this goes on, schools and colleges will continue to exist only for namesake.

Saying it with slippers

On Guru Poornima, the teaching community in Aurangabad’s colleges underwent the terribly confusing, almost schizoid, experience of being first venerated by their`chelas’ and then having their pride completely punctured by students, who also hung garlands of slippers around their necks.

Members of the All India Students Federation (AISF), determined to humiliate lecturers participating in private coaching classes following the recent Bombay High Court order, marched to the premises of these tutorials on July 9, gheraoed lecturers there and then garlanded them with slippers and leaves of the besharam tree.

If the contradictory postures added a touch of irony to the occasion, the students’ contrasting attitudes towards their `gurus’ was purely coincidental. While members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) waxed veneration by genuflecting in front of their teachers in the colleges, shame and scorn came from the belligerent AISF, whose members also climbed the dais at various private tutorials and tickled `errant’ teachers to the point of embarrassment as they tried to hold forth in class.

Garlands were appropriately prepared fromleaves of the besharam tree, which proliferates no matter how cruel the blows of the hatchet.Classes also resonated to the sounds of slogans as students diligently attending private tutorials argued with the AISF crusaders shouting themselves hoarse.When dusk fell, members of the AISF were still left with the ponderous task of carrying forward their agitation against coaching classes, which they vow will unfold with relentless vigour.