NEW DELHI: Days after three UPSC aspirants drowned after rainwater accumulated on the road flooded the library at Rau’s IAS coaching centre in central Delhi’s Old Rajender Nagar, Anand Kumar, the renowned founder of Super 30, expressed his concerns about the current state of coaching institutes. Kumar pointed out that students have now become ‘clients’ for the coaching centres.
Despite the prevalence of online content, students still flock to Delhi for coaching, prompting Kumar to comment on the future of educational centers and the need for a shift towards online education.
“They can read. It’s my prediction that might be wrong. In the coming 10 to 15 years, 90 per cent of these coaching institutes are going to disappear. I can say this from my experience,” said Kumar.
“Now only one per cent of experiments have been done in the field of online classes. Syllabus for online classes with good quality content is yet to be prepared. If some dedicated group of teachers prepare such content, the students can do online classes by sitting in their homes and they will benefit much more than the offline classes,” he said.
Kumar made an appeal to the government to create a team for UPSC aspirants and provide free coaching. He noted that considerable effort has gone into producing quality educational materials like NCERT books and suggested a similar initiative for online coaching.
“I would like to appeal to the government for form a team for UPSC aspirants and free coaching. After years of effort, a good book like NCERT has been written. I am praising the book and not the government. I am praising the team involved in writing the book. I do read Class 11 and 12 books and it feels good. So the education department should come up with a similar initiative and launch a big portal dedicated to online coaching,” Kumar stated.
Reflecting on the Old Rajender Nagar incident where three UPSC aspirants lost their lives, Kumar expressed his condolences and criticized the commercial approach of many coaching centers, urging them not to prioritize profits over students’ safety and well-being.
Kumar suggested that coaching institutes should limit the number of students they enroll to ensure proper seating arrangements and better educational outcomes.
He stressed that despite receiving numerous offers from investors to expand his coaching institute, he has chosen not to commercialize it, maintaining the quality and integrity of education.
“Even though I got a lot of offers from investors to sell the franchise of my coaching institute so that it could be expanded, my conscience did not allow me to do that. I request coaching institutions that education should not become a business but rather, continue the teaching process by keeping the interests of the children at the center,” Kumar added.
Kumar also pointed out that many coaching centers today refer to parents as “clients,” highlighting the commercialized nature of modern education.
Earlier, Rajya Sabha chairman Jagdeep Dhankar said on Monday that coaching has become “virtually commerce.”
“I find that youth demographic dividend of the country has to nurtured, I further find that coaching has become virtually commerce every time we read a newspaper front one or two pages are by way of advertisements. In a country where opportunities are getting enlarged this silo is turning out to be a problem. I deem it appropriate to have a short duration discussion under Rules 176 or a calling attention U/R 180. For that, I will confer with the leaders of the parties immediately before zero hour begins in my chamber,” Rajya Sabha Chairman said.
On Saturday, July 27, three UPSC aspirants died after the basement of a coaching centre in West Delhi’s Old Rajinder Nagar was flooded with water.