oppn parties Dummy Schools, Coaching Centres And Children Below 16

News Snippets

  • The Indian envoy in Bangladesh was summoned by the country's government over the breach in the Bangladesh mission in Agartala
  • Bank account to soon have 4 nominees each
  • TMC and SP stayed away from the INDIA bloc protest over the Adani issue in the Lok Sabha
  • Delhi HC stops the police from arresting Nadeem Khan over a viral video which the police claimed promoted 'enmity'. Court says 'India's harmony not so fragile'
  • Trafiksol asked to refund IPO money by Sebi on account of alleged fraud
  • Re goes down to 84.76 against the USD but ends flat after RBI intervenes
  • Sin goods like tobacco, cigarettes and soft drinks likely to face 35% GST in the post-compensation cess era
  • Bank credit growth slows to 11% (20.6% last year) with retail oans also showing a slowdown
  • Stock markets continue their winning streak on Tuesday: Sensex jumps 597 points to 80845 and Nifty gains 181 points to 24457
  • Asian junior hockey: Defending champions India enter the finals by beating Malaysia 3-1, to play Pakistan for the title
  • Chess World title match: Ding Liren salvages a sraw in the 7th game which he almost lost
  • Experts speculate whether Ding Liren wants the world title match against D Gukesh to go into tie-break after he let off Gukesh easily in the 5th game
  • Tata Memorial Hospital and AIIMS have severely criticized former cricketer and Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu for claiming that his wife fought back cancer with home remedies like haldi, garlic and neem. The hospitals warned the public for not going for such unproven remedies and not delaying treatment as it could prove fatal
  • 3 persons died and scores of policemen wer injured when a survey of a mosque in Sambhal near Bareilly in UP turned violent
  • Bangladesh to review power pacts with Indian companies, including those of the Adani group
Devendra Fadnavis to be the next chief minister of Maharashtra after Eknath Shinde agrees to join the government as deputy CM
oppn parties
Dummy Schools, Coaching Centres And Children Below 16

By Linus Garg
First publised on 2024-01-23 14:44:12

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Linus tackles things head-on. He takes sides in his analysis and it fits excellently with our editorial policy. No 'maybe's' and 'allegedly' for him, only things in black and white.

The Centre had last week issued new guidelines to register and regulate coaching centres. These guidelines were necessitated as unregulated and unregistered coaching centres were functioning without any rules. There were complaints about lack of infrastructure (students packed in small rooms, no toilets and lack of drinking water, among other things), under-qualified teachers, exorbitant fees and other anomalies. Then there was the problem of student suicides due to lack of counseling and immense pressure. Another thing which the Centre did was to mandate that enrolment of students could take place only after the student had passed the secondary examination or attained the age of 16. This the government has done for two reasons - one, to ensure holistic development of younger children in proper schools and two, to reduce the pressure on children below 16 so that their childhood is not lost.

The last has irked the coaching centres as between 10 to 15 % of their revenue comes from enrolling students below 16 years in age. In a meeting of the Coaching Federation of India, a body which claims a membership of 25000 centres, it was decided to seek legal advice on how to fight this fiat. The Federation wants the government to relax the age limit as it feels that students need to start at a younger age to crack the fiercely competitive exams.

But on the flip side, especially in towns like Kota, dummy or proxy schools have come up that are used by these coaching centres to enroll  students as young as 10 years. While the students attend coaching classes for IIT/JEE or medical or any other course, these schools provide them attendance and promote them to higher class every year by proxy. This is something that is an impediment in their holistic development. That is why the government has fixed the age at 16 and when the child has passed his secondary examination and is ready to choose what he wants to do next.