The Ministry of Education has released new guidelines that prohibit coaching facilities from enrolling students who are less than 16 years old, making false claims, and promising a certain grade or mark.
The new guidelines call for a financial penalty of up to Rs 1 lakh or the termination of coaching institutes’ registration if they charge exorbitant prices or engage in other malpractices.
According to officials, the standards for regulating coaching institutes were developed to address the need for a legal framework and to govern the unregulated proliferation of private coaching centres.
The Ministry’s most recent recommendations were issued in response to government complaints about an increase in student suicides, fire events, a lack of facilities in coaching circumstances, and the instructional methodology used by them.
“No coaching center shall engage tutors having qualifications less than graduation. The institutions cannot make misleading promises or guarantee rank or good marks to parents for enrolling students in the coaching centers. The institutes cannot enroll students below 16 years of age. Student enrolment should be only after secondary school examination,” the guidelines said.
“The coaching institutes cannot publish or cause to be published or take part in the publication of any misleading advertisement relating to any claim, directly or indirectly, of quality of coaching or the facilities offered therein or the result procured by such coaching center or the student who attended such class,” it added.
According to the new criteria, coaching centers may not recruit any tutor or individual who has been convicted of a moral turpitude-related violation. The new standards state that an institute will not be registered unless it has a counseling system that meets the requirements of these guidelines.
“Coaching centers shall have a website with updated details of the qualification of tutors, courses/curriculum, duration of completion, hostel facilities, and the fees being charged,” the guidelines stated.
The new guidelines also instructed coaching centers to take steps to improve student’s mental health, citing intense competitiveness and academic pressure.
“They should put in place an urgent intervention strategy to provide targeted and ongoing assistance to kids who are in distress or stressed,” the guidelines said. According to the instructions, the competent authorities may take actions to guarantee that the coaching center develops and makes a counseling system easily accessible to students and parents.
“All students and parents may be given information about the identities of psychologists and counselors, as well as the times when they provide services. Trained counselors should be assigned to the coaching center to provide appropriate guidance and counseling to students and parents,” the guidelines noted.
Additionally, it stated that teachers “may undergo training in mental health issues to convey information effectively and sensitively to students about their areas of improvement”.
The rules outlining the framework for mental well-being come after a growing number of student suicides in Kota in 2023. The new standards require tuition costs for various courses and curricula to be fair and reasonable, and receipts for the fees charged must be made public.
“If the student has paid for the course in full and is leaving the course in the middle of the prescribed period, a student will be refunded from out of the fees deposited earlier for the remaining period on a pro-rata basis within 10 days,” the guidelines added.
“If the student was staying in the hostel of the coaching centre then the hostel fees and mess fee etc. will also be refunded. Under no circumstances, the fee based on which enrolment has been made for a particular course and duration shall be increased during the currency of the course,” it said.
To guarantee adequate supervision of coaching institutes, the Central government has proposed registering new and existing facilities within three months of the guidelines going into effect.
The state government would be in charge of monitoring the coaching center’s activities and inquiring about any coaching center’s compliance with registration requirements and satisfactory actions.