Assocham observations of money spent in IIT coaching and Indians going abroad for their studies
July 2nd, 2008
Following are some excerpts from a report in thaiindian.com.
Private academies that train students for entrance exams of the Indian Institutes of Technology and other prestigious engineering colleges mint Rs.100 billion ($2.30 billion) a year – an amount that can fund 30 to 40 new IITs, shows a study by an industry body. The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) study, released Wednesday, said private academies who train 600,000 students every year for these exams make Rs.100 billion a year.
…Talking about another anomaly in higher education, the body said that 80,000-90,000 students go abroad for higher studies, leading to a high foreign exchange outflow.
“If quality institutions are provided, a large number of students will stay back and contribute to the nation,†said Assocham.
The chamber asserted that more institutions of excellence should come up and suggested that private players and big industrial groups should be encouraged in higher education.
According to Assocham, India has over 12 million students in higher education but fewer than 350,000 faculty members.
Entry Filed under: Coaching classes at plus two level,India,Private Universities
1 Writeup
1. R. K. Ghosh | July 5th, 2008 at 11:30 am
About 40% IITJEE qualifiers constitute about 12% of Kota students. This means overall about 20-24K students take Kota coachings. If perhead expenses are about 3 lakhs it means the total revenue earnings by Kota coachings is about Rs. 6×10^9. I think estimate of 10 thousand corers is possibly on higher side. Overall worth, considering infrastructure and other allied investments, of Kota Industry may possibly be near abouts. We have been thinking about this too. But I believe there is need to consider an out of the box solution for taming Kota onslaught. The major problem is only about 2% of aspirants finally make through IITJEE and AIEEE. So the gap between demand and supply is just too much. For past 60 years govt never thought beyond 5-7 IITs and 18 NITs. All on a sudden 8 more iITs are announced. So, it is quite obvious that the infrastructure, human resources would suddenly become a serious bottleneck due to huge existing gap. For 8 IITs to reach the stage of existing IITs will a herculean task.
One possible approach could be to convert JEE to a purely aptitude test with eligibility bar decided on the basis of performance in school exam. I am sure there will be some form of coaching to develop expertise in aptitude test. But that will not be in Kota scale any more.