For the first few decades post our Independence, Literature seemed to be the most appealing discipline to pursue. Those were the days when great writers like Nirala, Sumitra Nandan Pant, and many others popularised Hindi Literature. Post the 1960s however, the area of interest shifted towards the stream of Humanities. This sudden change in the interest was because many students preferred to take up the Civil services as their preferred choice of career. The syllabus for the Civil Service Exams covered subjects mostly drawn from Humanities. But the level of difficulty was high and only few students could clear it.
Paucity in career options post the Literature and Humanities era set a new trend with students wanting to pursue Science and Math. Though considered difficult, these subjects opened a lot more career opportunities.
A large number of technical institutions were started and most parents eventually began forcing their children to take the Science stream; without caring about the child’s interests. Sadly, this remains the case even today. Engineering and Medical are the most popular choices. Children, even without realising what Engineering is all about, take it up as they don’t seem to have much of a choice.
This sudden increase in number of students wanting to pursue engineering necessitated the Engineering Entrance Exam. The competitiveness of the Exam made the students to seek extra coaching. Ceaseless deterioration in quality of the Government driven education made the need of extra-collegiate coaching centres inevitable.
This led to the opening of the coaching institutes across the country.
Coaching Centres also opened doors for teachers who wished to introduce innovative ways of teaching over the traditional pedagogy. Since children as young as 11 years old join engineering coaching, the teachers need to constantly improvise their methods to increase these children’s aptitude for science and maths.
Some coaching centres serve as schools for students, others just as extra tutorials. Many coaching classes like in Kota and Vijaywada offer residential facilities for the students. However we at The Guidance Classes do not offer residential accommodation. In the vicinity of our classes in Delhi, there are many good and cheap accommodation for students. At our coaching centre like in many others, the number of female aspirants who enrol into engineering is much less, but in recent times the numbers are growing.
After coaching begins, we know that some students will find studying for engineering difficult. There are people who will give up sooner or later as they realise their future is not in engineering. For some the coaching itself seems tough. But this is an issue that parents must also think about. It is good that they are pushing their children to thinking seriously about their careers but it is important also to find out what their child really wants to do, because failure is something that not all children can take in their stride very well.
Dr. Abhinash Chandra is the Centre Head at the Guidance Classes, New Delhi.