Admission in coaching classes already winding up with leading centres charging 10-30% more this year, total course fee crosses Rs4.5 lakh
As Maharashtra government sits on a crucial decision of conducting state-level CET for admission in engineering courses and pulling it off from the national level test-JEE from next year even as making an announcement in this regard "verbally" in the month of February, coaching classes which offer JEE preparatory courses have both their hands full.
Most coaching classes are in the process of winding up their admission and have begun the classes since April. Moreover, they have hiked the course fee by 10-30% taking it up to a whopping Rs.4.5 lakh for two years training.
For the integrated course, which covers class 11 and 12 curriculum apart from preparation for JEE exams, Rs5.5 lakh is being charged by the coaching czars which have opened or tied-up with junior colleges. Some of them are in even expansion mode with opening a couple of more centres/ junior colleges in the interior of the state to cash in on "high demand" for JEE.
Delay in CET decision is adding up to financial burden of the parents as fee for the coaching for the state CET would be less than Rs1.5 lakh. "Since state CET is based on state board syllabus and regarded as easier compared to the national level test, the coaching fee would be just 1/3rd as compared to what we are charging for JEE," admits a teacher from a renowned coaching class.
Rao Academy has increased the JEE prep fee by a whopping 30% from this year. Chandan Dixit, Planning Head of Rao Academy, says, "A year ago, we were charging Rs2.5 lakh to 3.5 lakh for the two year coaching, it has now gone up to Rs3.5 lakh to Rs4.5 lakh considering the demand." The fee varies depending up on the centre's location.
Another popular class IITian Pace has hiked the fee by 11%. Pravin Tyagi, the managing director says, "Most of the candidates who enrol for the JEE preparation belong to middle class so we can't charge exorbitantly. We offer quality education at reasonable rate."
The "reasonable" fee at IITian pace is Rs4.5 lakh as against the Rs4 lakh fee in the previous year," admits Tygai. National brands like FIIT-JEE has also upped the charges by 10-15%.
"Pending decision on the CET is helping these coaching classes as parents are feeling the pinch," said Rahul Joshi, a parent who recently admitted his daughter in a popular class.
Joshi terms the current fee structure of the coaching classes as "unprecedented" and blame Devendra Fadnavis government for the mess in the education sector.
In the month of February, education minister Vinod Tawde had announced that state mulls pulling off from the JEE and may conduct state CET from 2016. However, the matter is yet to be finalised making lakhs of students and parents jittery.
There is no clarity on the exam pattern and whether class 12 board exams scores would also get weightage as in the present system. Students who are already in class 12 have less than a year to appear in the exam.
Around 13 lakh students take the national exam JEE for admission in top engineering institutes across India, which is also the first screening test for IIT admissions. Among them, Maharashtra candidates are over 2.45 lakh.
Since 2013 Maharashtra is conducting engineering admission based on JEE exam with also giving 50% weightage to class 12 board exam. The same procedure is being followed in 2015-16 admissions also which start by June.
When asked about the delay in the notification, SK Mahajan, Director of technical education says, "We have put up a proposal of conducting CET three months back which is still awaiting ministry's nod."The DTE feels that abolishing JEE might stop bright students from Maharashtra going out of state helping to fill more seats in state colleges which have largely remained vacant in past two years."
Tawde told dna on Friday, "We have announced that in 2016 admission would be done by CET. A final call would be taken in the month of June."
Jayant Jain, president of Forum for fairness in education, accused the state government for being hand-in-gloves with the coaching class owners. "Everyone knows about the nexus between these classes and politicians. There seems to be no reason other than benefiting the coaching classes by delaying the decision on JEE."
Jain also suspected that the late announcement of CET will also benefit coaching classes as they will demand extra fee for switching the program then.
Kapil Sibal says
Former HRD minister Kapil Sibal who was instrumental in bringing national test JEE, remarked, "The state government must have some vested interest in switching from JEE to state level CET."
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