COIMBATORE: The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has issued a set of regulations and guidelines for centres offering coaching classes for professional courses like NEET, JEE, TNPSC and UPSC. In its draft rules called Coaching Centre - Service Requirements (CC-SR), a copy of which is with the TNIE, the bureau states that the coaching industry has a substantial impact on India’s education system and economy.
Besides making registration and licence mandatory, the BIS has fixed qualifications and experience for teachers. For example, to handle students of classes X and XII, the faculty should have completed both UG and PG courses scoring at least 50% marks and have one year of teaching experience. Similarly, the bureau has fixed qualifications for faculties in each category.
Since April, the bureau has been conducting meetings across the country with educationists and stakeholders. It has fixed May 26 as the deadline to receive feedback on the draft rules. Mentor of Standardize Club, BIS Coimbatore branch K Lenibarathi who took part in one such meeting, said a report prepared by Pune-based consultancy firm Infinium Global Research has pegged the market value of the coaching industry at around Rs 58,000 crore.
“Coaching centres will have to function like educational institutions and for this, the central government must form a body to monitor the sector,” he said.
An aspirant, D Arulselvi at Salem district told TNIE, “I joined a coaching centre for TET training last year, but it was closed within weeks. I lost Rs 13,000. Without a monitoring system. aspirants like me are affected.” Association of IAS Academy and TNPSC Academic of Tamil Nadu, treasurer S Nataraj welcomed the guidelines. “If the regulations are implemented, many fraudulent centres will close automatically,” he opined. “Based on directions from senior officials, we received feedback on the draft rules. We would send them to New Delhi for perusal,” Jyotsna Priya Ragu, scientist cum assistant director, BIS (Coimbatore Branch) told TNIE.
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