Breather for kids as new norm puts age barrier on coaching

Hyderabad: Burdened with cracking competitive exams right from a young age, school children in Telangana can finally breathe easy. Thanks to recent guidelines of the Union ministry of education that has put an age barrier on coaching for these tests. As per its revised norms, coaching can be given only to children above 16 years or after they complete their secondary school examination.At present, scores of kids in Telangana start their NEET and JEE coaching right from junior school — some from as young as five years. In fact, academics say that many schools, including budget institutes, offer JEE/NEET foundation courses and charge an extra fee for these classes. “Not just NEET and IIT, many schools offer coaching for other competitive exams such as civils, banks, and staff selection commission. There is no other way they can survive otherwise as there’s a demand for this among parents,” said Yadagiri Shekhar Rao, chief advisor, Telangana Recognised School Managements Association. He shared how schools have ‘special sections’ right from class 1 that are dedicated to coaching students for these exams as they grow. Rao feels most schools might not adopt the ministry’s guidelines.Aparna K, who conducts IIT classes for high school students agrees. “Our school offers special coaching from class 3 because of the demand. A period or two are allotted for these classes and students are taught from the syllabus of higher classes so that have an edge over others,” said the private school teacher. Parents that TOI spoke to admitted to be party to the trend — either for fear of their child losing out or because there are out of options. “When almost all schools are offering such programmes, what are we supposed to do? We also enrolled our sons in these programmes hoping they’ll have a bright future,” said K Venkata Sainath, whose sons are in classes 10 and 8. While the older one is taking civils coaching, the younger child has joined the NEET foundation classes. Sainath is paying an additional ₹50,000 for these extra tuitions.K Jyoti too ensured that her daughter started out early and enrolled her for the IIT foundation at a school in Badangpet, right from class 1. “I paid an extra ₹35,000 so that she gets to study with a better peer group and have access to the best teachers,” she said.While one section of the academia expressed its concern with this practice for “creating unhealthy competition” and welcomed the ministry’s move, officials from Telangana’s school education department put the ball in the government’s court. “It is a policy decision that needs to be taken by the government on whether or not to implement these guidelines. We, however, believe that it is time for parents to retrospect and see whether these classes that are creating tremendous pressure on children from a tender age, are actually necessary. Steps have to be taken towards holistic development of the child instead of just academics,” said an official.
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