Cracking GATE (Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering), an exam that finds the best students in the country isn’t a breeze, but Bangalore-based Gate Academy is confident that the examination isn’t really a tough bet when you have the right set of skills and guidance.
Founded in 2009, the Bangalore-based institute has been a favourite among GATE aspirants for its unique feature of digitising content for students to help them remember complicated theories better. “We call it Visual Learning,” says co-founder Nitin Rakesh Prasad. “Here we use animation, images and graphics to explain a particular theorem or formula to students. The process is a bit expensive, but it helps students grasp things easily which they otherwise find difficult,” he adds.
Another feature that sets it apart is the institute’s efforts to help its students find employment. “If you see GATE results, only 15 per cent qualify and five per cent get jobs in government sectors and seats in IITs. The remaining 10 per cent do not know how to use their scores. We forward their resumes to core engineering companies, who in turn are always on the lookout for technically sound people,” says Prasad.
Apart from classroom coaching, the institute offers e-lectures (or online coaching), online test series, correspondence courses and tablet-based coaching. It is the first of its kind company to introduce the complete GATE education preloaded on tablet. The courses are targeted at second, third and final year engineering students, engineering passouts and professionals. “The courses cater to different groups of students. For instance we have online classes for those who do not have a GATE academy centre in their city. For those who travel a lot, we have an app to help them read while on the go and for those who don’t have internet at home, we have CDs,” says Prasad, an alumnus of IIT. The fee varies between Rs 500 and Rs 30,000.
Having 60 centres across the country, the institute has about 15,000 registered students and has reached about 70,000 students through its camp programmes. “Camp programmes are interactive sessions where our faculty members mentor students. It is more like a career counselling class where we help students take the right career decision” he says. While 25 students from the institute made it to the top 100 list of GATE scorers last year, the institute has gotten a total of 120 students into the top 100 list.
To ensure that students get the best guidance, the institute picks the best faculty in the industry. “We only recruit people who have qualified GATE with a good score and ensure that they come from a brand like IIT and possess impeccable communication and soft skills. Once selected the teachers are trained for three months before taking the classes,” he says.
The institution plans to switch over to apps in a bid to help students clear doubts and interact with teachers more effectively.
Another plan in the pipeline is to provide qualitative and cheap engineering tuitions, something that currently is the most unorganised sector, says Prasad. “We want to make superlative classroom coaching easily accessible to all,” he adds.
Reach out: http://thegateacademy.com/
VISUAL LEARNING Classes
The institute uses Visual Learning to help students understand and memorise difficult theorems and concepts in a better way. Students as part of it are taught with the help of animated images and graphics