Business Today – August 25, 2019

A motley group of coaching institutes

has extended its reach by offering

supplement online content for students.

By E. KUMAR SHARMA

Illustration by Ajay Thakuri

COACHING INC

HINK OF COMPETITIVE examinations

in India and the first thought that comes

to mind is of students and parents seeking

the right coaching courses. From Kota to

Hyderabad and Delhi, Coaching Inc has

spawned teaching hubs with factory-style

scale and the ability to turn asymmetric input into uni-

formly refined output. Year after year, batches of exam-

ready students are churned out of these talent factories

brandishing their high scores and ranks – tickets to their

dream careers. What’s changed is that most students are

part of coaching classes as well as online courses, sub-

scribing to online examination series and content.

In 2012, Asian Development Bank had published a

report on “Shadow Education” which stated that 60 per

cent of primary school children and up to 83 per cent stu-

dents in high schools received private tutoring. Accord-

ing to a June 2018 report by Care Ratings, the size of In-

dian coaching classes segment was about `21,700 crore in

2016/17 and is expected to grow at over 13 per cent (com-

pounded annual growth rate) over the next three years

to reach `31,500 crore. The main drivers are demand for

specialised education and training, growing importance

of pursuing professional education with the number of

aspirants much higher in relation to the number of seats

available, the report states.

The E-Format

Increasing demand means that many

coaching institutes now offer online

course-plus-examination series. Some

names that many students mention

are Resonance, Allen Career Institute,

EtoosIndia, Byju’s, Bansal Classes,

Motion IIT Institute, FIITJEE, Chai-

tanya and Narayana. Apart from rea-

sons such as proliferation of gadgets

(smartphones and tablets) and easy ac-

cess to internet, students want online

content because many entrance exami-

nations are now in an online mode.

Etoos, a coaching giant from South

Korea, is known more for its online

presence in India, especially for study

material, online lectures and test series.

Allen Career Institute, which founder

Rajesh Maheshwari had started with

just about eight students in Kota in

1988, has since then coached more

than 1 million students in classroom

programmes, its core competency.

However, Naveen Maheshwari, Direc-

tor of the institute, says that in keeping

with the trend towards online courses,

“We started our Onlinetestseries.in

portal for students in 2012/13 with a

strength of 1,955 students. For session

2018/19, we have crossed 53,237 stu-

dents.” He explains that students take

online courses as a supporting tool

to leverage classroom programmes.

“(But) the primary choice to prepare

for national examinations remains

classroom contact programmes.”

In a bid to familiarise themselves

with the examination process and pa-

pers, students opt for a larger variety

of tests and enrol at more than one

coaching institute. For off line classes,

most students bank on coaching insti-

tutes and then tap into online content

from other institutes to further fine

tune their understanding of concepts

and to get a sense of how they fare

nationally in online tests. The online

material costs range between `1,000

and `50,000 depending on the type of

content sought and its duration.

@EKumarSharma

EDUCATION SPECIAL > ONLINE COURSES

`21,700

CRORE

Market size of

Indian coaching

classes segment

in 2016/17

`1,000-

50,000

Cost of

downloadable

content and other

material

Major

hubs:

Kota, Hyderabad,

Delhi, Chennai,

Ranchi

T

`31,500

CRORE

Size of the market

in three years,

growing at 13%

CAGR

August 25 I 2019 I BUSINESS TODAY I 103