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HomeIndiaEducationProvide counselling sessions, recorded lectures — authorities order coaching centres in Kota

Provide counselling sessions, recorded lectures — authorities order coaching centres in Kota

This isn’t the first time authorities are issuing such instructions to coaching centres. However, students say once they are inside the institute, all they can think of is studies.

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New Delhi: A day after three students died by suicide in Rajasthan’s coaching hub, Kota, the local authorities have instructed the coaching institutes to issue instructions ensuring children’s mental well-being and to set up a remedial center which provides recorded lectures, in an effort to prevent such occurrences in the future.

The Kota district collector and senior police officials Tuesday afternoon held a meeting with the representatives of coaching institutions, including those from Allen Career Institute – where the three students were enrolled – to take stock of the situation.

Institutes have been asked to check that students don’t bunk any classes and to loop in parents if they do so. They have been instructed to make arrangements for a separate remedial center where students can listen to/attend recorded lectures in case they have missed any classes.

“We have given instructions to all coaching centers and they have been asked to have a robust system in place within the next 15 days,” District Collector OP Bunker told ThePrint.

He added, “We have also asked institutes to hold counselling sessions for students. In fact, our own officers go for motivational talks in coaching centers and we try to tell students that getting an IIT admission should not be their only goal in life, they should keep an open mind.”

These instructions were issued because the three students who died by suicide Monday were allegedly under stress because they missed lectures. Classmates and teachers at the coaching center told the police that the three were way behind other students and the pressure got to them.

This isn’t the first time authorities are issuing instructions to coaching centres on the mental health front of students.

In 2015, the state government had formulated guidelines for coaching centers which required them to keep the environment “stress free”, make room for recreational activities for students at the center and ensure that students get at least one day off in a week.

The government had also told institutes to limit class sizes to a maximum of 80 students instead of the 200 students, which was the practice in most institutes.

Earlier this year, the district collector also introduced fee refund guidelines for the institutes, which implied that students will be able to get a full refund of their fees if they wish to leave the course midway.

Students, however, claim that the guidelines are not executed properly and once they are in the coaching center, all they can think of is studies and how to score better in the next test.

Speaking to ThePrint over phone, Mohan Kumar, a student enrolled in one of the Kota institutes for engineering entrance said, “Once we start our preparation, it’s all about finishing the syllabus and getting better marks in the next internal test. It’s the kind of competition that no one prepared us for but the teachers in coaching class tell us that if we are able to deal with this stress, only then we will be able to crack IIT.”

Another student, Krishna Sahu, Kumar’s roommate said, “We are competing not just with other students in other coaching centers but also with our friends and roommates and that pressure gets very unhealthy. No coaching center thinks about our recreation or our mental well-being.”


Also read: Kota was once a prosperous industrial hub. Now it has just 1 factory left — exam coaching


 

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