50% of IIT aspirants not in favor with coaching classes

After completion of Class 10, students are interested to get admission to the coaching classes to prepare well for Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) exam.

JEE exam is conducted for admissions to Engineering courses in Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) across the country.

A recent survey says, around 50% of the IIT aspirants do not like to go for coaching classes to get admissions in IITs.

According to the sources, the information collected by the technical colleges reveal that 50% of students admitted to the IITs are preparing on their own, without the help of any coaching classes.

But the coaching classes say that their enrollment numbers have been increasing every year.

Praveen Tyagi, proprietor of IITians Pace, said the statistics were not authentic. "My students ask me if they should disclose that they took coaching. We, like most other classes, advise them against doing that. For, we fear some day the IITs may decide to favour those who didn't take coaching."

In 2005, the IITs were forced to look inwards, and a committee headed by C N R Rao, principal scientific advisor to the prime minister, limited JEE attempts to two, to tackle the coaching phenomenon. "Students who came in after spending years in coaching classes used to burn out very fast; most took six to seven years to complete the four-year course," observed an IIT-B faculty member.

A faculty member who teaches mathematics in IIT-Guwahati did not agree with claims made by students. "I do not think all students are giving us the correct picture on the coaching front. Surely, there are some students who make it from extremely poor and disadvantaged backgrounds, but I feel most other candidates take some sort of coaching," he said.

Meanwhile, faculty members blame IIT coaching centres for drop in quality of students entering in IITs.

IIT coaching centres teach by spoon feeding students.