Coaching Classes-The Necessary Evil?

In this dog-eat-dog world of education, survival of the fittest is the norm. Therefore, students and parents have to get the students to the top, by hook or by crook. Coaching classes and tuitions are the most legitimate recourse that they can take to attain this aim. Legitimate in the sense that there is no law forbidding them to attend the classes.
The importance of external extra coaching increases when the parents are not qualified. If they are qualified also they may not have the time to go through the entire books and teach their children. The lessons especially in the 9th and the 10th have become so tough now. How will the parents be able to keep up with the lessons? Say the people giving extra coaching.
Come vacations, the students make a beeline for coaching classes, rather than travel agencies. Coaching classes attract them with promises of high grades in vital examinations and even promise them to refund the entire fees if the performance happens to be poor!
Statistics show that the performance of the student is drastically affected by the presence of coaching classes in the picture. Most toppers in the 10th and 12th standard examinations have the backing of prestigious coaching classes.
“Very few students having a high IQ can top the board exams without coaching classes,” says Mrs. Chitra Kripalani, Principal, Kripalani Classes.
But even those students go to coaching classes because they want to perform even better.
The concept of coaching classes came into the forefront, during the British Rule, when the rich and famous wanted to educate their children but could not send them to school, with the commoners. After independence when education and performance in exams gained importance, tuitions became the most important requirement of the students – elite as well as the common. Tutors would either come to the student’s home to teach or the students would go to the tutor’s place. Home tuitions and the tuitions at the tutor’s place are still in vogue. At their homes, the tutors teach groups of students belonging to different classes, simultaneously. Teaching a group of students belonging to the same standard came to be known as coaching classes.

The job of coaching classes and tuitions is to reinforce what is learnt in school. “Coaching classes supplement the coaching in school. When students do not understand well in class, coaching classes help. For example, the teacher in school does not get time to do all the sums in Maths. It is then that the coaching class teacher steps in and helps with the doubts in the other sums. Besides the students may have difficulties. How can the teachers in school tackle all these difficulties with the number of students in the class increasing from 60 to 80 or more?” Mrs. Kripalani says.
To this end, personal contact between the students and the teachers is necessary. Classes like Kripalani, Adarsh and Vidya Niketan profess the same.
There is another aspect of the presence of coaching classes in the lives of the students. When these classes take the lessons before the school does there is a tendency of the students not to pay attention in class for the second time. Mrs. Kripalani insists, “It should not be so. The students should take this as a revision of the lesson, particularly if the teacher is competent and teaches well. But if the teacher is not teaching well, even if it is for the first time, the children won’t pay attention.”

“I heard this from a student when I took one of the lessons in class. ‘We know this why do we need to study it again,’” complained Gauri Mukadam, a school teacher. “When they have already studied the lessons in classes, they not only stop paying attention, but do not allow the other sincere students to listen.”
In this situation, the student who cannot afford the tuitions let alone coaching classes is the sufferer. Mrs. Kripalani said sadly, “It is difficult for them. But, friends can help. They don’t have an alternative if they can’t afford. Those are the students who repeat the class.”
This article was first published in Eve’s Times magazine and has been reproduced here with the permission of the editor, Swati Amar.

Just something, I can’t stop myself from saying. I am proud to say that I am a product of Kripalani Classes. I have studied Science and Maths under the guidance of both the husband and wife, the Kripalanis. 🙂