Kota Ka Quota

Over the last few years, many times I have come across the view that the “coaching institutes” or “competitive examinations preparation institutes” are responsible for the deteriorating quality of students at institutes of higher education (viz. IITs, IIMs, NITs, BITS, etc.).

This view has somehow gained incredible popularity. I have seen many different breeds of people (ranging from students, faculty of IITs and IIMs, newspaper reporters, etc. to people who can’t even expand IIT) literally cursing the coaching institutes for ruining the entire higher education system!

This post is directed to all these people. To begin with, I am here formally defining the key ideas.

Debate 1: What does quality (of students) really mean? In a country like India, where there is severe shortage of good quality (of education) seats, who are the students that really deserve to be admitted?
Debate 2: Whether the quality (of students) (arrived from Debate 1) is really declining as claimed/blamed by many people.
Debate 3: Whether the “Coaching Institutions” can be blamed for this declining (if so after debate 2) quality.

I firmly believe that debate 1 and debate 2 cannot be resolved and are amazing topics for long fruitless discussions. So I will try my best to not go into these areas. I am here arguing on debate 3, and my contention is that coaching institutes cannot be held responsible in any way for any so-called damage to the education system.

First and foremost, it is elementary logic that without resolving debate 1 and debate 2, there is no question of a debate 3. Most people do not have a stand on the first two debates. So, I fail to understand how they simply go ahead and blame the coaching institutes.

Let us just agree for a moment that the quality (whatever it means) is indeed declining. The argument of the “coaching-is-bad” brigade is that those who are really talented (which they define as people with high IQ) are not the ones who get selected, but those who take help of expensive coaching (and are actually not deserving) get the coveted seats. Their idea is that people who are intelligent (but didn’t know what to study because of no guidance) are more deserving than people who are not-so-intelligent (but can recite the books backwards, because the coaching guys made them do that).

My humble argument is that as a sensible individual (as defined by Adam Smith), the coaching guy has no interest in ruining the system. He is concerned about his daily bread. If he can make a donkey remember everything and get through competitive exams (and if the donkey pays him to do this), the coaching guy will train the donkey. It is the responsibility of the exam-designers/paper-setters that donkeys are not able to get through by sheer diligence. Again it is elementary logic that if donkeys are filling the seats (that somebody else deserved), blame the paper-setters, not the donkey-trainer! So, if you want the intelligent guys then take an IQ-test! Why are you asking maths, science and then cribbing that those who solved the papers are not the ones you wanted to pick! If you think the filtrate is bad, change the damn filter!

Let’s go into history and look at the times when coaching institutes were not there. In British India, was it not the *rich and resourceful* who went to London to become barristers? Why go that far, before 1990, was it students from remote villages studying in Government schools making to IITs/IIMs? Or was it the students from expensive private schools? It is obvious that the more resourceful always had an advantage (whether due or undue). The coaching institutes have done nothing new. So, why this sudden hue and cry?

The fact is that the Government was never able to provide quality education at primary or secondary school level. The private schools failed to look beyond the board-results performance. People realized that board exam performance is not going to take them places and the private tutoring (that already existed) capitalized on the opportunity.

With limited seats, the demand for private tutoring increased. With more money in the economy, the coaching fee increased. This is an age where people are paying atrocious amounts to send their one-and-a-half year olds to play-school for just six hours a week! It does not require knowledge of economics to realize, that private coaching is an industry with very high demand and limited supply. Gradually, it will enter maturity phase and with more and more good institutes coming up, the abnormal profits will cease. Coaching is itself a product of the system. There is no question of the institutes ruining the system.

This evolution of the system is obvious (to me) and as seen above it is a normal economic phenomenon. People want to spend money where they get results. Today if some private school raises its fee, people will switch to some other school. This is because schooling is a compulsion and the *real studies* are happening at the coaching institute. So coaching institutes can raise their fee. This also shows that coaching institutes are able to provide the right services for the amount they are charging. At least they provide good education and put effort. Otherwise, the private schools would have charged the same amount for putting less than half the effort.

Let us now spare a thought for those students who actually get in an IIT through these coaching institutes. Unlike what many people think, these students are not *low IQ* people who just cram things for two-three years and get in. Most of them are already screened by the coaching institutes through their own entrance exams. The competition has percolated there and only the best-of-the-lot gets into the best institutes. Post the entrance, they go through a long grind of constant mental and physical labour and anxiety to prepare for D-day. I believe it is not just bad-manners but also sheer stupidity to tell them that they didn’t deserve to get in. I have all the respect for people who have diligently gone through the process. In my opinion they definitely deserve to get in! Sorry, I went into debate 1. I also think that if there were no coaching institutes, still most of these people would have got in. Ok, they would have been less prepared but so would be the competition. The coaching institutes have just raised the bar. Every year, the students are better prepared for competitive exams than ever before. Most of the selected students already know the first year syllabus. I really don’t know how the quality has declined. Sorry, I went into debate 2.

I am not saying that there is no problem at all. There are people in our villages, who if given a chance can make the best of engineers, scientists, managers, economists, etc., but they don’t have access to quality education. I totally understand, agree and appreciate this problem. What I am saying is that it is not the coaching institutes that are to be blamed for this.
Finally, here’s a quick word on Kota (to justify the heading of this post  ). This is a place which came on India’s map because of excellent coaching facilities. People who prepare for medical/engineering exams in Kota go through exactly what was described in the above paragraph. Most of them are not natives of Kota and live away from their families (for 2 years!) to get that kind of education. The success of Kota’s coaching institutes is so incredible that IITs could not believe it. They could not digest the idea of so many students being selected from a relatively small town. Most of the professors at IIT think there is some shady business (paper leaking etc.) in the background. More than being incredible, I think it is unfortunate. For the only action IITs took was to remove the test-centre from Kota, and to make the entrance exam simpler.

I have had the opportunity to personally argue on this issue with a particular professor of IIT Bombay who has once been JEE (Joint Entrance Examination) Chairman and on JEE Paper-setters committe. And argue I did! To the extent that I could (which was not enough to convince him). Here is what I got from him.

The rationale behind making the entrance exam simpler was that non-coaching students also stand a fair chance. Well I suggest... Sir, why don’t you just set the paper from primary school syllabus to make it fair to everybody. Then even the *hidden and truly deserving talent* in the villages will get in! By making the paper simpler you are just increasing the randomness in the system. Consider two people, a 5th grader and a noble-laureate mathematician. If you ask both of them to count from 1 to 100 can you really decide who is better? Make the papers tougher! Pick problems that require applications of concepts and thinking beyond the obvious. Only then you will be able to pick those who are both intelligent and knowledgeable.

As far as removal of test-centre from Kota is concerned, he told that they were not sure what happens in Kota... so no centre, to be on the safer side. I am not sure what to say. Even if none of the students from Kota deserve to be in IIT, at least a place with so many candidates deserves to have a test-centre. For a moment, I agree that IITs were themselves not sure whether their paper is being leaked in Kota or not (which Mr. Ex-JEE Chairman agreed so matter-of-factly as if this is totally normal). They removed the centre. Did the results from Kota change? Still, they did not restore the centre there. I think it is unbelievable WTFness and nothing else.

Dear IITs/NITs/BITS/IIMs, if you really want to solve the “hidden talent with no access” problem, you need to focus on awareness and quality of primary education. I know this is not your job. At least get your ‘blame-target’ right. Blame the Government, not the coaching institutes. Don’t expect the coaching institutes to admit villagers. They are businessmen, not charitable institutions. Stop trying to ruin their business by taking idiotic steps like removing centers and setting easier papers. Focus on setting tougher and more intellect-requiring papers. Speaking of papers, I haven’t seen a paper without mistakes in years! These mistakes make the selection process totally random and can prove very costly to the candidates! And the same paper-setters have the audacity to blame the coaching institutes for inducing randomness in the system! (This post is already too long, so I don’t even want to start on what happened with C.A.T. last year)

There are ways to do something about the real problems. An initiative in this direction is Avanti, an organization that helps those who are not capable financially, to get good coaching. You can know more about this at avantifellows.org

Bottom-line: Nothing is going to come out of this blame game! Coaching is good!

Important Disclaimer: I have never said that only the above mentioned institutes viz. IITs/IIMs/BITS/NITs are the best/most-sought-after institutes. If in any way the above post gives any such feeling, I hereby clarify that this is not my stand. So please don’t tell me that you didn’t mention MDI/IIITs/any-other-institute and that they are equally good/better/poor/worse. I have implied this for all institutes and have used the IITs as an example.

Another Important Disclaimer: If you think that quality is declining not in terms of intelligence or knowledge, but in any other way (etiquettes, teacher-student relationship, overall personality), you may or may not be right (to be decided post debate 1 and 2). This post has nothing to do with all that.