This Article is From Feb 10, 2010

Patna tense again as students slam coaching centres

Patna tense again as students slam coaching centres
Patna: For the second day in a row, hundreds of students set vehicles on fire and threw stones at Patna's coaching centres to protest against what they describe as the corruption and poor standards of private tuition classes. (In Pics: Patna students vs coaching centres)

The police came out in full force on Wednesday to control the students who began their riots on Tuesday. One student had died and more than 12 were injured, four of them seriously, in Tuesday's violence. (Read: Students go on rampage against coaching centres in Patna)

"These centres command so much fees but don't even cover the basic syllabus," complains Amarnath Chaudhary, a young college student.

Decades ago, in a Bihar with limited job opportunities, the civil services were much in demand. That triggered the growth of thousands of private coaching classes to help prepare students for the UPSC exams

Today, these classes cater mostly to engineering and management aspirants.. Their fees: a whopping 20,000 rupees per student per year. Students complain that teaching standards have been sliding.

"If we are so bad, why do students come here? Of course we complete the syllabus," defends Neeraj Kumar who teaches at a coaching institute.

To pacify students, the government says it will introduce a law to regulate coaching. "Earlier there was a move to make a policy but now we will frame laws," said Bihar's Human Resource Department's Principal Secretary, Anjani Kumar Singh. Under the law, it would be made mandatory for the coaching institutes to offer basic minimum services.

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