IIT CAT 2013: Hard lessons for private coaching centres

The proposed common admission test format for the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and National Institutes of Technology (NITs), could prove to be a damper for the Rs 10,000-crore coaching industry.

Come 2013, the existing marking system will be replaced with one where the focus will be on the performance at the board exams. Candidates will be chosen, based on their ranks in the board exams and the number of students who appear for the exam under the concerned board. “For example, a student from CBSE would get more points for being ranked fourth, than a student from the West Bengal Board,” said Gautam Barua, director, IIT Guwahati.

At present, IIT aspirants appear for the IIT Joint Entrance Exam (IIT JEE), which takes into account a student’s capabilities in physics, chemistry and mathematics (PCM). Board exams or class-XII results do not play a role in the final marking system. A student has to, however, score a minimum 60 per cent to qualify for the examination. Over 1.5 million students appear for the exams every year.

He said the idea behind changing the exam format “was to strike at the root of the coaching system that has gripped the country”. “We want these coaching classes to be transformed into schools,” he said, adding that the new format will encourage students to earn merit at the Plus-2 level. “The best way to do it, would be by encouraging students to perform better at the board exams.”

Coaching centres will, therefore, have to change their approach, said experts. For instance, Gautam Puri, managing director of Career Launcher, one of India’s better-known coaching institutions, said students will focus more on the overall package of subjects rather than just the PCM combination. “The way students prepare for the exams will change. Instead of focusing on the PCM, they will study everything. It will directly impact residential coaching institutions, which offer the code for cracking the earlier PCM-based exam. This kind of a coaching system will not be needed for just an aptitude test.”

At present, there are three types of examinations to apply for an engineering course — the IIT JEE for IITs, the All India Joint Entrance Exam (AIJEE) for other government engineering colleges besides the IITs, and the state board engineering exams for state engineering colleges.

The residential coaching programmes that Puri refered to are estimated to be a Rs 400-500 crore industry in Kota, a small town in Rajasthan, with a burgeoning student population. Over 70,000 students arrive in Kota to prepare for the entrance exams. While coaching institutions like the Forum for IIT-JEE chose to downplay saying it is too erealy to pass a judgment on the potential impact of the change, others like Pramod Maheshwari, MD and CEO of Kota-based Career Point, echoed Puri’s views.

“Now that Class XII board exam marks will also be taken into consideration, there will be a lot of competition to secure good marks in these exams. In this case, expert coaching will still be there. But, though the coaching modules would be modified as per the requirements, I believe there the business would be affected temporarily,” said Maheshwari.

Others, however, said the new exam format will merely mean a change in the coaching syllabi. “The analysis that students study only for the exam and not for their boards is incorrect. Over the past five years, the average IITian has a board exam percentage of over 80 per cent. Good students will continue to look for help. As long as that happens, it will be business as usual,” said P K Bansal, CEO, Bansal Institute. Kota-based Bansal Institute gets over 12,000 students every year an average and the annual fees per student is Rs 70,000.

The idea behind the change in the format, which was taken at the meeting of the IIT Council last week, was to curb the growing coaching culture. Terming the coaching system as a “racket”, Sanjay Govind Dhande, director, IIT Kanpur, had observed that the entrance examination system had to change.