Coaching centres treat students like slaves: Prakash Javadekar

Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Prakash Javadekar.

CRITICISING coaching centres, Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Prakash Javadekar on Monday said these centres treat students as “slaves” under the garb of training them for admission to IITs and other such prestigious institutions.

He said a decline in teaching standards in schools and colleges are also to blame for the increasing reliance on coaching centres.

Speaking at the launch of the second edition of Smart India Hackathon 2018, organised at the College of Engineering, Pune , the minister said, “It is a cause of worry…students from Class VIII become slaves of these coaching institutes. They are being taught to only face competitive exams. The coaching institutes are promoting rote learning and not imparting actual knowledge to the students.”

Maintaining that teaching is now limited to textbook-learning, he said, “Very few teachers like to be asked questions, and this has prevented overall understanding of subjects and learning…. This is the reason coaching centres are getting stronger,” he said.

The Smart India Hackathon is an initiative of the HRD Ministry, along with the All-India Council of Technical Education. It is aimed at involving the country’s engineering students on working to find solutions to issues plaguing the society. Last year, nearly 10,000 engineering students, mostly from private institutes, had attempted to address 598 problem statements put forth by various state governments and ministries.