Vijay Garg
The classroom bell no longer signals the end of a school day in India’s cities. For nearly half of urban students in Classes XI and XII, the real grind begins after school — in the cramped, fluorescent-lit halls of coaching centres. According to the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation’s Comprehensive Modular Survey: Education 2025, a staggering 44.6 per cent of urban students in this bracket are enrolled in private tuitions. Rural numbers are not far behind, with one in three students seeking extra help. Together, 37 per cent of India’s senior schoolers are spending their formative years rehearsing mock tests rather than engaging in holistic learning.
What this data reveals is not merely academic ambition but a systemic failure. Private tuition, once a support system for struggling learners, has become an unavoidable survival tool. Parents, resigned to the inadequacies of schools, willingly pay hefty fees to coaching centres, fearing their children will otherwise “fall behind.” Schools themselves are complicit, running thinly disguised “remedial classes” that expose the inefficiency of teaching within their own walls. The fundamental question begs to be asked: what value are classrooms delivering if learning is outsourced?
This tuition culture has corroded the spirit of education. Instead of fostering curiosity and creativity, learning has been reduced to a high-stakes endurance test — marks, ranks, and admissions. The financial burden is crushing. Urban families spend close to ?10,000 annually on private coaching, double the rural average. For households at the margin, these expenses are back-breaking, yet unavoidable in a society where access to quality higher education is narrowing. Those who cannot afford private tuition are left stranded, victims of an inequitable system that perpetuates privilege.
The psychological cost is equally severe. Adolescence, meant to be a period of exploration and self-discovery, has been hijacked by relentless drills. Students buckle under pressure, often spiraling into burnout, and in tragic cases, suicide. That this has become normalized in a country with a National Education Policy promising inclusion, innovation, and holistic learning is a damning indictment of policy inaction.
Regulation of the coaching industry, as the Centre attempted in 2024, is necessary but not sufficient. Shadow schooling thrives because mainstream schooling is collapsing. Unless schools reclaim their purpose — by strengthening curricula, investing in teacher training, and expanding higher education opportunities — private tuition will continue to masquerade as the real classroom.
India must confront an uncomfortable truth: we are raising a generation not of learners, but of survivors. To rescue our children from this treadmill, we must restore faith in the classroom and redefine success beyond test scores.
Vijay Garg Retired Principal Educational columnist Eminent Educationist street kour Chand MHR Malout Punjab |
