Why Government Implemented New Guidelines For Coaching Centers? (image-pixabay)

The Guidelines for Registration and Regulation of Coaching Center 2024 was introduced on Thursday by the Ministry of Education’s Department of Higher Education. The guidelines prepared on Tuesday were forwarded to all state and union territories to take appropriate actions. 

Though laws regulating coaching institutes have already been implemented by several states, there has been an increase in issues to private coaching centers including suicide cases, fire incidents, and lack of facilities as well as methodologies of teaching which has engaged the attention of the government. 

Instances have been reported such as charging exorbitant fees from students, undue stress on students resulting in students committing suicides, and loss of precious lives due to fire and other accidents.

Education falls in the Concurrent List of the Constitution on which the center and state can legislate.

The issue has even traveled to the Supreme Court recently in November last year when a parent approached the top court seeking guidelines or any kind of regulation to prevent the loss of precious young lives at Kota, Rajasthan which recorded 26 suicide deaths in 2023, the highest in 2015, reports Hindustan Times.

In the context of the issue of private coaching centers, the government has requested the state governments to take necessary actions for the regulation of the coaching centers. The National Educational Policy 2020 introduced on July 29, mainly focuses on regular formative assessment for learning rather than the summative assessment that encourages ‘coaching culture’. Thus issues to the elimination of the coaching culture to avoid such mishappenings have been addressed in detail by the government.

The states that currently have a legal framework to regulate private coaching centers include Bihar, Goa, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Manipur.

Addressing the concerned issues, the government introduced guidelines that include criteria that have to be followed by the private coaching classes. It includes governing fees, study hours, penalties, and minimum area requirements for coaching centers.