Will NEP-2020 reduce the need for coaching classes?

The National Education Policy 2020 has repeatedly stressed the need to reduce dependence of students on Coaching Classes for Boards and Entrance Exam preparation. It highlights three key changes to enable this:

1. Reduce high stake status of board examination by allowing two attempts

2. Focus only on testing conceptual understanding in board exams (and even entrance tests)

3. Single entrance test for each stream via National Testing Agency twice a year.

I am not sure these will kill the coaching industry catering to school students. A second Board Exam is a perfect opportunity for Coaching Institutions to run a droppers batch or short-term Booster Batches. The assumption that by allowing two attempts, stakes will reduce is not very convincing. If several Universities continue student admissions based on Board Exams, stakes will not reduce.

There is a hierarchy of Universities, with a small number of “reputed” universities at top and a heap of bad ones beyond top-30 or so, just below them. There are not many mid-range universities in India (in terms of reputation).

Either you get into Delhi University, Mumbai University, Punjab University, etc., or it does not matter. You can get anywhere else. The number of seats at top universities remain low, and competition remains tough. So, one would want to score that extra 5 marks through coaching if they can buy those with money (i.e. have the ability to pay).

The argument about testing conceptual understanding is also unconvincing. The hope is that such conceptual understanding can be provided in schools.

Changing policy does not change the capabilities of teachers in our schools. It is a sad truth that Coaching Industry attracts best of the teachers.

These address a gap left by our school education system. While Coaching classes focus on mock exams and shortcuts, they definitely focus a lot on conceptual understanding for the best of their students (top sections in each stream) along with training them for cracking exams via better time management, strategy to select questions and eliminate options etc.

In fact, Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) for IIT admissions or Common Admission Test (CAT) for MBA admissions to IIMs and other top institutes are conceptual.

The older version of JEE in fact was as conceptual as it could get (before MHRD intervened to make it easier to reduce pressure). No amount of cramming or rote learning could help you qualify. Same is the case with CAT. The Mathematics questions are not beyond Grade-X concepts. Logical Reasoning is again mostly simple arithmetic functions.

Unless we bring changes to the way schools operate, teachers within these schools teach, and we create an ecosystem that allows every school student to practice conceptual understanding questions, and create large number of affordable, high quality Higher Education Institutions, coaching classes will flourish. Another alternative is to legally ban all out-of-school teaching which may not be very feasible (politically).

Single entrance exam, twice a year, will again have no positive impact. In fact, it will have a negative impact.

Right now, students could take 10 exams (spread over 1.5–2 months) and maybe, they do well in one and get seat in a top performing institution. With just one attempt, the stakes will increase. If one fails in first attempt, she is likely to take coaching in second attempt in order to ensure better performance.

The risk, instead of being spread, is now concentrated. Unless diverse criteria for admissions (and not just entrance exam and Board marks) are not universalized by Higher Education Institutions across the Board, the current high-stakes nature of entrance examination will not change.

This needs to be accompanied by creating better quality institutions that have reputation for rigour and good opportunities after graduation. Only then will we see some impact on the value students place on coaching vis-a-vis school, and on academic learning vis-a-vis other experiences in life.

In conclusion, I cannot see the NEP-2020 accomplishing its goal of reducing student dependence on Coaching Classes. This will require some other changes in the way our schools and universities operate. That is almost impossible in short run and will require lot of investment (monetary and human) and planning. In short run, the coaching industry is safe and will keep flourishing.