The success rate of engineering and medical coaching institutes is so phenomenal that this city has risen to top rank for aspirants. SHAlINI SAKSENA probes what makes it so highly sought
Now that the results of JEE Advance and AIIMS have been declared, it is natural there will be talk about the success mantra of coaching institutes and their ability to train students to get the coveted rankings.
When we talk of coaching institutes, the otherwise low profile city of Kota in Rajasthan pops up every time. The city has been throwing up top rankers for decades.
It all started with Bansal Classes by VK Bansal back in 1980. Back then, Bansal, working with JK Synthetics as a mechanical engineer, was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy. Doctors gave him told only five to six years.
Thirty-seven years down the line, he is alive and kicking though now doesn’t teach since he is paralysed. It was a UK doctor who told him to look for an alternative. He started with teaching a student, Puneet Pandey, (today, head of 9X Media). When Pandey topped in his school, Bansal became popular and the number of students grew from one to four for his home tuitions.
In the mid-80s, Bansal was fired. From here, Bansal’s journey of training Class VIII students for IIT-JEE began. Since he could not walk, he would spend 18-20 hours teaching and his students started clearing exams.
“It was not till 2000 when Nitin Gupta got the first rank that Kota came into the limelight. People started talking about how teaching in this city was done differently. Bansal Classes came into prominence. Again, in 2002, two students ranked 1 and 2. From there on, five students of the institute started getting ranks. Around this time, RK Verma (from Bansal Classes) decided to start off on his own and he Resonance coaching institute was established,” Gaurav Yadav, head marketing and academic counselor with Bansal Classes, says.
Once he broke off, others too, followed suit to launch their own institute or were lured by others. The money involved was huge — teachers who were being paid Rs25,000 a month Started getting pay package offers of Rs50 lakh per annum.
With teacher salaries now touching a whopping Rs2 crore per annum and institutes earning a clear profit ranging between Rs100 crore to Rs600 crore, others want a slice of the pie and Vibrant Academy, Motion Education, are just one of the many aspirants.
“High salaries meant that Kota became a hub for top teachers. The city is a dream destination All those in the teaching profession. That 40 per cent of those who have qualified for IITs were from Kota meant that their children would also head for this town. Parents who have passed out 20 years back are now bringing their children here,” Yadav tells you.
To ensure that each centre has the same level of excellence, faculty undergoes training at their head office in Kota before being placed at these centres.
But with faculty retention becoming an issue, Bansals are now concentrating on training their alumni; till now they have trained 1,500 teachers. Since beginners start off at Rs10 lakh which increases to Rs50 lakh in four-five years and touches Rs1 crore later — the institute manages to hold on to their teachers.
Since these institutes make so much money, it is not so much about who the faculty is as it is about the brand and its high success rate.
To ensure a steady flow of students each year, each institute has its own mantra, The only common criterion being that the entrance exam to get admission into any of these prestigious institutes more or less guarantee a seat in the engineering college.
Once the entrance exam is cleared (the student needs to score over 70 per cent), there is a one-on-one interaction with the student to gauge his calibre.
For the Bansals, besides the entrance exam to their institute, it is the regular test reviews that ensure that the students have understood the concepts being taught in class.
“Besides regular seven-hour classes, we have a system wherein every day four hours are set aside for students who have not understood what was taught in the class or were too hesitant to ask a question. Here the teacher takes individual teaching session with the student. Then there is a test that is given after class in the form of Daily Practice Problem Sheet — to help a student recall what has been taught the previous day. This is then followed by a review test every 15 days and the scores sent to parents. So we constantly monitor our students to ensure their success and eventually ours,” Yadav says.
Then there is regular counseling too. Any distraction spells doom for the student and the institute. Since most children are away from home, homesickness is common. “Many students who come to us have been away from home for the very first time. Being homesick is common. Then there are the usual girl-boy problems in this age. Peer and parental pressure are also there. To find out what is happening in a child’s personal life is just as important. Even the slightest problem can blow out of proportion and become a huge roadblock in the path to success. Counseling helps,” Yadav asserts.
Agrees Nitin Vijay, MD of Motion Education. Here, student counseling is important as is promoting the brand and not the faculty. “This is because teachers come and go, the institute remains and there is need to maintain its reputation of churning out rankers year after year,” Vijay says.
The reason why it is the institute and not the faculty that is highlighted is, the minute you promote a name, the institute becomes dependent on that name which no institute wants. Since every year, hundreds of IITians visit Kota looking for jobs, there is no dearth of excellent teachers and, therefore, it is the institute than needs to be in the limelight.
“As there is no way one can hold on to a faculty, we have to build the name of the coaching institute rather than the teacher himself,” Vijay admits.
This year, the institute has thrown up one AIR in top 100, 13 in AIR 500 and 27 AIR in top 1000 for JEE Advance. Out of 2042 students, 678 qualified in JEE Advance taking the result to 33.2 per cent which is a good result.
Vijay tells you that since 70 per cent faculty is from various IITs, they know what the pattern of the exam is and gives the city an edge. “Our USP is teaching with technology. We make it compulsory for every student to have a tablet so that a teacher can track each and every student. For example, if a topic is being taught on Gravitation and the teacher needs to float extra information in the form of a quiz, he can do so. The feedback on how each student has performed on the questions helps a teacher know how many have understood the concept, how many have managed to answer the questions and how many need extra classes. If the general feedback is that most have not understood, the teacher can reschedule the class on the same topic,” Vijay tells you.
Then there is state-of-the-art library — motion solution lab. The students are encouraged to revisit the class via videos that they have attended. Sometimes, students pre-listen to these lectures. This in most cases helps clear doubts. Then there are five different exercises that student need to submit within a week once the topic is over. This helps a teacher to track the progress of a student.
Success also depends on how quickly the student is able to adapt to the changing patterns and since the faculty is from various IITs, it becomes easy for the institutes to introduce that change into their students. Since they are being taught by IITians, there is a bond that forms between the students and the teacher.
“This bond is extremely important as it helps the teacher track a student’s progress, a process that is crucial for students whose aim is to get admission in an IIT,” Vijay tells you.
Students scoring 85 per cent and above are automatically moving towards Kota if they want to get into engineering or a reputed medical college. When they see their peers working hard, they too fall into a system where they have no option but to study.
“The city provides an atmosphere where students are constantly bombarded with information which they imbibe even when they are not studying. With so many candidates in one city, there is so much information available in an informal set-up,” Vijay opines.
For Vibrant Academy, the result this year stood at 52.19 per cent (out of 2899, 1513 cleared) for JEE Advance. Twenty-nine of its students made it to the top 100 AIR with Suraj Yadav — AIR 5, Sumit — AIR 47, Manas Shukla — AIR 55 and Medha Kant — AIR 75.
Kota throws up so many toppers because of the brilliant faculty. Another reason is that since there are so many coaching institutes, there is a lot of competition among them to come up with good result and thereby attract more and more candidates to their institutes.
That this academy, which came up eight years back, was started by a break-away faction of Bansal Classes whose directors and owners were at one point HoDs with Bansals and brought in the expertise from there is an added advantage.
“We have different batches — those who join us when they are in Class XI, and those who join us in Class XII. Then there are repeaters. Not only this, there are many who come to Kota just to improve their AIRs. Those who do well in the entrance exam are even given scholarships,” Narendra Avasthi, director, Vibrant Acemdy, tells you.
Since students come here from all over the country, most of them get permission from their school back home to skip regular classes there. If not, there are schools in Kota where they can get admission and pursue their coaching.
“Students who come here are enrolled in schools in the city that they have come from. For example, a student from Hyderabad who joined in Class XI is already enrolled in a school. All that he needs to do is get leave of absence permission. Many do give permission because it also means accolades for their school once he qualifies for IIT. In a rare chance that a student doesn’t get permission, he can enroll here in Kota since CBSE is very strict about Classes XI and XII.
“In such cases, we have a bus that takes the child to the school and brings him back. Since we teach the curriculum of these classes for the entrance exam, the student only has to do two subjects on his own — English and one other subject of his choice. This eases the burden and takes away the pressure built due to Class XII Boards,” Yadav explains.
For Aakash Institute, it is the training that is given to its students from the very beginning that makes all the difference. The All India Aakash Test Series helps shortlist the students. Then there is the result of students of Class X. Once we have the students, we put them through the monitoring system. Each student is tracked subject-wise, then there is interaction with the teachers and HoDs.
“One way to ensure that no student slips and performs well even on D-day is via test analysis. For example, if in the test he has attempted 25 questions out of 30 in Physics, our R&D team sits and analyses the child’s paper. We find out where he has gone wrong and why he has left the questions. Once we identify this, we talk to the teacher where his problem lies. We individually sit with the child to rectify the problem. We give him at least seven-eight questions on the same topic to clarify his concepts through Concept Strengthening Sheet which helps improve his performance,” Ajay Kumar Sharma, national academic director (engineering) of Aakash Institute, explains.
Then there are administrative and academic counselors who motivate the child at every stage. Visits by the chairman who gives motivational lectures benefits too. This year, the institute claims that 2411 of its students have cleared the JEE Advance with one making it to the top 10 AIR (Ashish Waikar; score 329/366), five in top 100 AIR — Shashij Gupta — AIR 30, Manaswi Rajpurohit — AIR 61, Mohan Abhyas Vabili — AIR 64, Aaron John Sabu — AIR 94.
To ensure that there is not too much pressure on the child, the calibre of each is identified. Those who show that they can make it to the toppers’ list are pushed a little harder as opposed to others. “Each child is different so his needs are different too. While the teaching methodology is the same how we push him to excel differs,” Ajay says.
Then there are apps from Topprs.com that help students. “The benefit of such apps is that it gives the students personalised teaching as opposed to a classroom where teaching is the same. Through the app, a student can get his doubts cleared even at 4 in the morning,” Rajshekhar Ratrey, VP educational content, Toppr.com opines.
One can better ones chance of clearing the JEE Main (1 in 6) and JEE Advance (1 in 3), he says.
WHAT TO DO
Coaching institutes in Kota have proved to be an ideal destination for students aspiring for an IIT seat. SHAlINI SAKSENA tells you what a student needs to check before seeking admission