Why Coaching Is Responsible For Paper Leaks

Dear Reader,

Last month, people from around the country participated in the Cockroach Janata Party-led protests against NEET paper leaks and student suicides.

The protests were a success. Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned.

But as we all discussed protests and paper leaks, we missed one thing: coaching, the enormous industry built around these exams, and one that, as educationist Anita Rampal argues, has helped create the conditions for paper leaks.

In India, the test-preparation or coaching market is worth $14.8 billion and is growing at 12-15% annually, according to a recent report by consulting firm Redseer.

“My coaching institute would conduct daily tests. I was very prepared for NEET,” said Dhwani, 19, who took the NEET on May 3 and then the retest in June.

Dhwani comes from a family of doctors. Her father, mother and naana are all doctors. She knew she wanted to become a doctor from Class 4.

In Class 11, she enrolled in a large batch-based coaching institute in Mumbai. The institute charged her Rs 4.5 lakh for two years.

Unlike her, Shaurya Uppal, also 19 and based in Mumbai, wanted more personalised attention. So, he opted for 1:1 coaching. 

For Dhwani and Shaurya, coaching was useful. They scored 484 and 400 in the retest, respectively.

And neither had to move cities to attend their institutes. 

But many students do, moving to so-called ‘coaching hubs’.

Take Sikar, a city in Rajasthan that has become one of India's biggest coaching hubs. The city now has a whole economy built around test preparation.

A year of coaching, hostel and food commonly costs Rs 3-5 lakh.

A second year, or a drop year, multiplies that cost. And drop years are common because the exam is that hard.

And, educationist Anita Rampal told me that for families from small towns or villages, coaching is more much than an educational add-on. 

“It’s an aspirational project for their parents. It’s not just that my child will get something, but the family will move on. It’ll give us some social mobility. It’ll change lives,” she said.

But the odds of success are tiny. “It’s maybe less than 1% or even smaller, 0.5%” she added.

Prof Rampal argues that the coaching boom is part of the problem: it has turned a single high-stakes exam into a massive, high-pressure industry, creating incentives for shortcuts and, ultimately, paper leaks.

At the same time, coaching has become impossible for students to avoid.

So, why has coaching become so central to getting into medical college? And has it become part of the problem it was supposed to solve?

I explore these questions in this week’s episode of The Signal Brief.

You can find The Signal Brief on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

Thank you once again for listening and supporting us. We’d love to hear from you; write to us at [email protected] or find us on Instagram or X at @thesignaldotco.

Best,
Kudrat
on behalf of The Core

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