Super 30 founder: 'Students have become clients for coaching centres, fees should be controlled'

Days after three UPSC aspirants died due to drowning in the basement of a coaching centre in Delhi's Old Rajender Nagar, Anand Kumar, the founder of the educational programme Super 30, said students have now become clients for the coaching centres. He said such an issue comes to light when an incident takes place. "It is the responsibility of the government to carry out inspections from time to time and I request the coaching institutes to not rush just to earn money," Kumar said while speaking to news agency ANI. 

The educator said a smaller number of students should be enrolled so that there are proper seating arrangements for them. "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 centre," he added. 

Kumar, known for coaching underprivileged students for JEE–Main and JEE–Advanced, pointed out that coaching centres today addressed parents as "clients". "Nowadays, most people have created marketing teams in coaching centres. I am surprised that when parents sell their land to educate their children, people there talk about them as clients while serving tea. Students have now become clients. These things have taken a very distorted form. I believe that there should be control over fees as well. For this, the government should create a Coaching Act. Existing acts should be revised," he said. 

The educator said that the coaching operator, where deaths happened, made a mistake, and MCD should have kept an eye on it. He further said that now it was more important to fulfil the students' demands than to see who takes responsibility. "After the investigation, strict action should be taken against those found responsible. Students are demanding 1 crore rupees in compensation; we say that the coaching operators should give even more. They have no shortage of money," he added.

Earlier, Vice President and Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankar said coaching has become virtually a commerce. "Every time we read a newspaper, the front one or two pages are of their advertisements," he said. 

However, security analyst Sushant Sareen suggested there was a need for an examination system that cannot be gamed or cracked by coaching institutes. "If coaching is a commercial activity, what is wrong with that? Either create an examination system that cannot be gamed or cracked by coaching institutes. But socialism and DEI dictates that exams cater to the lowest common factor. This makes them susceptible to being gamed. But go ahead and blame coaching centres. After a week it will all be back to normal."