New Delhi: Tanvi Rishika, 13, secured third rank in an “IAS examination” while still in school. Except this exam was not conducted by the UPSC. It was by a coaching institute. LeadIAS Junior is tapping into a new territory by providing coaching to school students aspiring to become civil servants. Rishika has been taking online classes for the past two years.
For Rishika, the score marked the first step toward a dream she has carried since Class V — becoming an IAS officer, an ambition nurtured early by her grandparents.
“I have always been told that I should become an IAS officer as they have the highest respect in our society. I am getting training at LeadIAS, where I study History, geography, economics and current affairs,” said Rishika who’s now in Class IX and lives in Vizag.
Whatever she learns at LeadIAS Junior helps her in the school syllabus as well.
“I studied about Jallianwala Bagh in my history book at school, and at LeadIAS they explained it and helped me understand it on a vast scale. There are mentors who teach us how to communicate, develop critical thinking, and improve newspaper reading skills,” Rishika added.
The exam to enter India’s steel frame consumes lakhs of aspirants and their prime years. And the gargantuan task of developing a command over the syllabus comprising history, polity, geography, economics, ethics, current affairs and essay writing is key to cracking the UPSC code. It’s the slog and the ability to soak in the pressure that counts while clearing many competitive exams in India. It is this phase of future aspirants for which Lead IAS and a select few coaching institutes are running these programmes. Start early is their mantra.
A Lead IAS advertisement on X reads, “Start Civil Service coaching at the school level. Let them realise their dream of becoming an IAS/IPS officer early.” This may just be one of the early attempt to institutionalise civil services dream during childhood. The pitch seems familiar to WhiteHat Junior’s, the online platform promoted by Bollywood star Hritik Roshan that promised to train school kids in coding, making them “future ready.” That didn’t work well and it had to shut down. Lead IAS has been running since 2021.
The institute is Kerala based but runs their programs in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Thiruvananthapuram, and even in Sharjah-UAE. The course is online. Many senior UPSC aspirants and retired IAS/IPS officers mentor the students.
“I have always believed that for qualifying the civil services exam and succeeding professionally, the following attributes are essential: Knowledge, Comprehension, Analytical skills, and Communication skills.”. Most of the Institutes focus only on the first attribute which is necessary but not sufficient. Moreover, the other attributes require a longer duration to acquire,” said retired IAS officer Anil Swarup, who has mentored some of the students at LeadIAS Junior.
The institute runs such ads promoting civil services coaching to school students but says it is not particularly focused on making the students IAS or IPS. Instead, it strives to build their personality.
“LEAD IAS Junior was launched in 2021 as an early skill development course for school students, focusing on skills that necessarily need to be learned from school age itself — such as critical thinking and communication, which help students attain high positions. We have adopted a concrete mentorship model to achieve this goal and impart these skills through a diverse set of activities,” said the institute in a written reply to ThePrint.
However, the programme trains students in newspaper reading, note-making, structured discussions and current affairs analysis — practices commonly associated with UPSC preparation.
“We teach them the skill of capturing relevant news from newspapers, help them create notes from books, ensure that they read books, and encourage opinion formation through peer discussions. Nurturing these skills at a formative age builds a strong foundation for excellence — not just in the IAS exam, but in all walks of life,” the coaching institute added.
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The pressure question
Civil services is not the only career path that India’s coaching industry has tapped into at the school level. It’s just the latest. For years, institutes such as Aakash Institute and FIITJEE have offered “foundation” courses for students as young as Class VI, preparing them early for competitive exams like NEET and IIT-JEE. With regular school studies running alongside entrance preparation, children were introduced early to the dream of becoming doctors and engineers.
At platforms such as LeadIAS Junior and ClearIAS, students from middle and high school are trained in newspaper reading, current affairs analysis, public speaking and leadership skills under the guidance of UPSC aspirants, retired bureaucrats and mentors associated with the civil services ecosystem.
“Are you a parent of a school student who wishes to impart to your son or daughter the necessary skills to pursue a prestigious career as an IAS, IPS, or IFS officer? ClearIAS offers a specially designed Civil Service Foundation Course for School Students – ‘ClearIAS Junior’,” reads the introduction of the course at ClearIAS website.
Kerala-based Swati A.S. is a UPSC aspirant herself, but for the last 10 months she has also been mentoring schoolchildren enrolled in ClearIAS Junior. According to her, the programme is designed differently for various age groups. Students from Classes VI to VIII are introduced to basic subjects such as history, geography and current affairs through storytelling, newspaper reading, public speaking and leadership-building exercises.
For students from Classes IX to XII, the focus gradually shifts towards understanding the basics of General Studies subjects, developing analytical thinking and learning how to begin “serious preparation” for the civil services in the future.
“We teach them how civil services preparation works. For older students, we also guide them on how to start their preparation seriously after school,” said Swati.
But experts believe that such practices are better for children, provided they are not put under too much pressure.
“The biggest challenge is ensuring that this does not turn into pressure on children. In India, civil services are seen as highly desirable jobs and many parents want their children to become IAS or IPS officers. If a child is naturally inclined towards something else but is pushed in another direction, that can create pressure. That is why children should constantly be reminded that they have multiple career options,” said educationist and policy strategist Meeta Sengupta.
Some parents reach out to the coaching institutes with direct questions about how their kid can begin “serious preparation” for civil services early, viewing the programme as a foundation for a future career in bureaucracy.
“Some parents want to give their children a basic foundation from Classes VI to IX itself so that they can move towards serious preparation later in higher classes,” said Swati.
Also read: Why the third attempt is the lucky charm for UPSC aspirants
‘Building necessary skills’
The 10-month online programme of LeadIAS for students from Classes V to XII includes weekly mentorship sessions, general knowledge and current affairs classes, group discussions, debates, quizzes and interactions with retired IAS and IPS officers. The platform also teaches students about note-making, public speaking, analytical thinking and newspaper reading, with activities where they collect, summarise and present news stories before their classmates as part of structured discussion sessions.
The institute says these habits should begin years before a student even becomes eligible to write the UPSC exam. Lead IAS doesn’t claim it offers “UPSC coaching” to children. It describes the course as a way to build the long-term cognitive skills required for civil services preparation.
“We are not imparting UPSC coaching, but we focus on necessary skills that need to be learned from school time itself to crack UPSC. As we all know, critical skills take years to master. Therefore, just as parents send their children to football or chess practice, cognitive skills must also be developed from a young age,” said LeadIAS Junior.
At the same time, the institute openly frames these skills as foundational for future civil services aspirants.
“This long-term approach ensures that an aspirant develops the qualities required for the preparation of the Civil Services Exam. In the words of our Mentor Shri Anil Swarup IAS (Retd), “ Lead IAS Junior prepares students for the preparation of Civil Services Exam”,” the LeadIAS Junior statement added.
Swarup said he tells the institute teachers about assisting aspiring students.
“My role is to help convey the importance of these attributes to the aspirants at a young age and guide Lead IAS on how to go about assisting aspirants,” said Swarup.
Thirty-nine-year-old Unni Krishnan enrolled his daughter into LeadIAS junior last year. The institute has changed how his 11-year-old engages with the world around her. Now she reads newspapers regularly, collecting and presenting news during classroom discussions and interacting with students beyond her school circle through online sessions.
“When I first came across advertisements promoting the programme as civil services coaching for schoolchildren, I thought it was purely meant to train children to become civil servants. But later saw it more as a platform that develops communication skills, awareness and analytical thinking at an early age,” said Krishanan.
According to him, the programme exposed children to activities that often remain outside the regular school curriculum, such as structured discussions, note-making and public speaking.
“If she decides to become a civil servant later, this training will help her. And if she chooses something else, it will still help. We joined mainly because it was helping her build confidence, communication skills and the habit of gathering knowledge,” said Krishnan.
Edited by Anurag Chaubey