New Delhi: Three months after it abruptly shut operations across the country, FIITJEE has reopened one of its coaching centres in the National Capital Region (NCR), marketing the move as ‘FIITJEE 2.0.’
Several hundreds of students were left in the lurch in January when the FIITJEE administration closed centres amid mass resignations of teachers over unpaid dues. Police in Ghaziabad, Noida, and Bhopal have lodged FIRs against FIITJEE.
“FIITJEE has officially resumed classes at its Noida centre from today. An orientation session for Classes 9 and 10 was held, with 48 students attending yesterday—and we expect even more today. The trust students and parents have shown, despite everything, means a lot. There were several questions for the teachers, but overall, the response has been very positive,” Mohit Rajput, centre head, FIITJEE Noida, told ThePrint
The current team has 22–23 staff members, compared to 30 earlier. Teachers from the Punjabi Bagh and Kalu Sarai have joined the centres and those who had previously left have not been called back, he said.
The centre in Greater Noida will reopen from next week, Rajput added.
The Noida centre’s reopening appears timed to coincide with the upcoming academic session, possibly an attempt to regain lost ground in the competitive coaching market in the NCR.
On Friday, the coaching institute for the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) posted two messages on its ‘X’ page, signalling its comeback. It further posted two dates (13 and 27 April) for prospective candidates looking to enroll for the engineering test.
न हि ज्ञानेन सदृशं पवित्रमिह विद्यते
🎯 At FIITJEE, knowledge isn’t just taught — it’s deeply understood. With smaller batches, each student gets the attention they deserve to conquer concepts and crack JEE with confidence. pic.twitter.com/JJHnrk2Ys4
— FIITJEE (@fiitjee) April 11, 2025
Although the teachers and students who left FIITJEE after its closure don’t have information about the reopening, sources in the coaching institute said that the management was trying to restart the centres since January.
“We haven’t received any message from the institute and neither have we received any money that was stuck with FIITJEE for a long time,” said Rajendar, a parent of a student who used to study in FIITJEE Noida Center.
A video is now circulating on social media showing FIITJEE staff cleaning the premises, breaking coconuts, and performing a pooja—signalling a new start. The message in the video reads: ‘Introducing FIITJEE 2.0: Reviving Noida & Greater Noida Centres with the best academicians, unwavering trust, and a commitment to excellence. Your path to success starts here!’
In January, FIITJEE faced mass resignation of teachers following which its centres began to down shutters one after another, leaving students and their parents in a state of confusion and shock.
At the peak of the controversy, FIITJEE had said that it had “not closed any centre as part of its own decision” and called it a criminal conspiracy. “This entire story is part of a criminal conspiracy hatched by people with vested interests. The truth will emerge soon as detailed investigations are conducted,” the coaching giant had said in a statement.
FIITJEE maintained the same line as well this time on Friday. “Some people had conspired against us, which led to the closure. The teachers knew they were going to resign the next day, yet admissions were conducted till the very last moment. It was clearly a planned move. But FIITJEE is back now. And, we are committed to delivering even better results than before,” Rajput told ThePrint.
The Noida centre head was referring to the selection process of engineering aspirants whose entrance test and selection is done by teachers.
Before it folded up operations, FIITJEE, one of India’s oldest coaching institutes for IIT-JEE preparation, has had a visible presence in the NCR and in various Tier-2 cities across the country. The Noida and Greater Noida centres handled the busiest operations.
But, over the past year, FIITJEE suffered a fall in the number of admissions in the face of increased competition from rivals like Physics Wallah, Allen, Aakash, and new-age EdTech platforms.
The first sign of trouble came in December when FIITJEE founder and chairman D.K.Goel lost his temper at an employee for questioning some investment decisions in a Zoom meeting. Goel had unleashed the choicest of abuses, a video of which was shared widely.
Aggrieved teachers had pointed at financial difficulties and mismanagement within the institute, with some even alleging that the due amounts ran into lakhs of rupees. Soon, FIRs had followed against Goel and other senior coaching functionaries.
Deputy Commissioner of Police, Noida, Ram Badan Singh, meanwhile, told ThePrint that the case against FIITJEE was transferred to the Crime Branch. “So, we do not have any update on the case now,” the DCP said.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
Also Read: FIITJEE couldn’t solve the money problem. It tried new business models and still failed
Large coaching companies (eg fiitjee), being in this business for over three decades, prob have a lot of reserves prob upto 5 x present revenues – many with holding companies in foreign countries like US. So, it’s not possible that they can fold up so quickly. Newer Kota institutes probably have local assets only.
Any coaching institute (like fiitjee), in order to survive in the current teaching scenario – with a high teacher: student ratio, higher outgo, will need to charge a higher fee, and go into the premium segments of iitjee, sat (foreign admissions), nri seats in indian colleges, and neet. It would have expanded to foreign shores simultaneously with govt policy changes, clearly maintaining strategic contacts within the govt bureaucracy so as to get early mover’s advantage from anticipated policy changes.
For local students, fees are itemised, so that the fee refunds (if reqd) are given for tuition, but not for exams and other management items.
Another very old tactic that’s adopted by most managements is to keep almost 30% of salary as employee benefits, and also have stringent bond conditions on leaving/resignations… to get the “maximum performance”. After a few years, the salaries increase and employee benefits swell & become a large part of the company’s expenditure – making the company unviable: and therefore, it is a good strategic move by managers to let most employees go in an “irregular” manner – do this every five years or so, and this gets hold of all the cash that has been held in the name of the employee – as they naturally “forfeit” it. The company’s balance sheet, naturally improves substantially. The older expensive faculty/employees are got rid of, and younger cheaper employees can be hired.
There are allegations of cheating everywhere, and even police cases – but so long as the syllabus is completed for the present term – the students can’t really complain much – some may take refunds.
When the results of the exams emerge, there is obviously competition among the people to take credit – this is where the company with more money wins: it can get more video advts from the students by giving large cash prizes, it can put out large advts in newspapers, it has contacts with established school principals, teachers where it gets recruits new students, it has a comprehensive brand name marketing strategy. So, the company actually wins by firing the faculty after every 5 or 10 years.
Some of the teachers who leave don’t do very badly either: so, it’s win-win for both sides, even though publicly they trade a lot of insults. That’s why this happens.