Students opting for coaching institutes for assistance in Graduate Aptitude Test for Engineering (GATE) within Hyderabad are alleging that the coaching institutes are demanding huge fee amounts and have further increased the fees by 50 to 100 per cent within year in view of a surge in the number of aspirants.
On behalf of the IITs, the National Co-ordination Board conducts the GATE test ever year in the second week of February across the nation. It is considered to be an eligibility test to fill the M.Tech, ME and PhD seats in IITs. Many of the leading private and government institutes in India consider the GATE score as a basic criteria for admission at the post graduate and PhD levels.
A couple of years ago, the PSUs like IOCL, NTPC, BHEL, BEL, Power-grid and many other organisations started considering the GATE score as a primary eligibility criteria to fill the vacant posts arising every year in their organisations, which led to an increase in the number of aspirants.
Besides this, with the bleak employment opportunities in the market and ever increasing engineering graduates, many graduates look up towards coaching centres to enrol for GATE coaching in order to pursue post graduation in prestigious organisations to improve job prospectors.
The number of aspirants surged from 1.8 lakh in 2008 to 7.7 lakh in 2012, and the number reached 12 lakh in 2013 across the nation. However, of the 12 lakh registered, only about 10 lakh appeared for the coaching in February.
Speaking to Express a candidate, who is in his final year Computer Science Engineering at a private college in the city said that a coaching centre offering coaching at Abids had demanded `32,000 for a 60 day coaching. “Last year, the same coaching institute had collected only `22,000 from my senior”, he recalled. The coaching centre actually collected Rs 10,000 a couple of years ago. Furthermore, they used to give concessions by about 50 per cent to toppers from each college, but now they had removed the concession offers with the increase in the demand.
With the fee reimbursement scheme in force, he said that students like him have somehow managed to pursue graduation in engineering though they hail from very poor financial backgrounds. However, these coaching centres lacking Central government monitoring are collecting fees indiscriminately and increasing the fees without any logic every year.
Despite having scored over 80 per cent in first three years of B.Tech, he said that he is neither able to secure a campus placement nor able to go for higher education in IITs or NITs, as he is unable to take the coaching. He has demanded the state government to take action against such institutions and provide coaching to candidates hailing from poor financial backgrounds.
Another Electronics and Communication Engineering student said that another private coaching centre used to have only one branch a couple of years ago in Hyderabad, and now has six branches.
Another coaching centre with its branches across the nation, also hiked the fees by Rs 15,000 in two years .