[ad_1]
Several faculty members said that the number of students in Kota coaching centres has declined, but there has been an increase in the number of students in their branches located in cities like Patna, New Delhi, Latur, Mumbai, Rajkot, Baroda, Sikar and Lucknow. Till last year, students from these cities used to come to Kota’s famous tuition classes to prepare for competitive exams.
“The number (of students) at the centres in New Delhi has gone up from 9,000 last year to 20,000 this year. The management aims to cross 30,000 in the coming year, which is a three-fold increase,” said a faculty member at the New Delhi branch of Allen Career Institute, Kota’s largest coaching centre. Enrolments have also increased in smaller towns, he said, with the Patna branch adding 8,000 students this year, an impressive number considering it opened only in 2021. Allen’s coaching centres in tier-three cities like Sikar in Rajasthan are also attracting a good number of students from nearby towns and villages, the teacher said on condition of anonymity.
While the new centres are offering pay hikes to attract and retain teachers, the Kota centre is grappling with pay cuts and declining students.
Queries sent to test preparation companies like Aakash, Allen, Unacademy and Physicswala did not elicit any response.
Increase in enrollment
Meanwhile, Allen’s Kota rival Unacademy has seen a surge in enrolments in Latur in Maharashtra, a city that used to send many students to Kota every year. “We have crossed 1,800 this year, far surpassing the enrolment target of about 1,500,” said an Unacademy official who asked not to be named. Meanwhile, Unacademy in Kota saw a drop in enrolments from 10,000 in 2023 to 7,000 in 2024. Mint As stated earlier.
In fact, Unacademy, which has four branches in Patna, had given a 10% hike to some of its best-performing teachers in April. National Eligibility Criteria “If it had not developed, we would have got more students,” said a teacher. The teacher said some of the teachers who came here were from Kota on lower salaries.
Allegations of irregularities surfaced after the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET-UG) in May, in which 2.4 million students appeared for admission to medical colleges. After several protests and arrests over high marks and leaked question papers, the matter reached the Supreme Court.
The exodus of students to smaller centres comes at a time when Unacademy teachers are facing salary cuts, while those of Allen and its arm Reliable have been slashed by 20-40%. Teachers at rival Physicswala have also been shifted out of Kota to contain costs.
Earlier, students who could not clear NEET or get their desired seat would go to Kota to prepare for another year, but coaching centres are not expecting such a trend this year.
The story of Kota
Two years after the pandemic, Kota was once again overcrowded as thousands of students flocked in for tuition and accommodation. The record enrolment led to a war to expand the faculty and other centres.
Coaching institutes that do not have their base in Kota will also benefit. “This year we have seen a 20% increase in the number of students registering for engineering and medical entrance exams,” said the founder of a local coaching centre that started about 20 years ago in Vadodara, Gujarat.
The founder said, “When Kota institutes opened their centres in Vadodara a few years ago, they offered huge discounts of over 50%. A bubble was created, and now their main centre is in loss.”
Families prefer sending their children to coaching classes that are closer to home, said Mujtaba Wani, principal at GSV Ventures, which has invested in edtech including Physicswala and LEAD. “Especially given the stress of test preparation and the tragedies that have happened in Kota, many people would prefer to get their children educated locally or in places nearby if that is a suitable option.
Kota’s reputation as a coaching hub has taken a beating in recent times with reports of several students committing suicide due to exam-related stress.
Wani said edtechs are opening physical centres across the country. “I believe this will drive revenue growth for test preparation companies because the opportunity to have dozens, if not hundreds, of locations across India is a much bigger revenue pool than quotas.”
[ad_2]
