Addressing the 4th Convocation Ceremony of the Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Kota in Rajasthan on July 12, Vice-President of India, Shri Jagdeep Dhankhar, teared into the issue of coaching impacting education by labeling coaching centres as poaching centres and back holes of regimentalizing talent. “Coaching centres have turned out to be poaching centres. They have become black holes for talent in regimented silos. Coaching centres are mushrooming. This is menacing for our youth who are our future. We must address this malice that is worrisomely concerning. We cannot allow our education to be so smeared and tarnished,” the vice-president said.
Dhankhar said, “How can we even speak of Gurukuls today—among the 22 visual depictions in the Indian Constitution, there is also an image of a Gurukul. We have always believed in the donation of knowledge. Coaching centres must use their infrastructure to transform into skill centres. I urge civil society and public representatives before me and outside to appreciate the urgency of this disease. They must converge to restore sanity in education. We need coaching for skill.”
He underlined how obsession with marks is harming the spirit of learning, saying, “The obsession with perfect grades and standardized scores have compromised curiosity, which is an inalienable facet of human intelligence. The seats are limited but coaching centers are all over the country. They prepare the minds of students for years together and robotize them. Their thinking has absolutely stymied. A lot of psychological problems can arise out of it.”
The Vice-President encouraged students to look beyond grades, saying, “Your marksheets and grades will not define you. When you take a leap into the competitive world, your knowledge and thinking mind will define you.”
Shri Dhankhar strongly opposed the idea of education being treated like an assembly line, saying, “We must end this assembly-line culture, because this culture is very dangerous for our education. Coaching centers are against the flow of the National Education Policy. This creates unnecessary hiccups and impediments in growth and progress.”
He also voiced a sharp critique of rote learning culture, saying, “We are facing the crisis of cramming culture which has transformed vibrant minds into mechanical repositories of temporary information. There is no absorption. There is no understanding. It is creating intellectual zombies rather than creative thinkers. Cramming creates memory without meaning. Cramming creates memory without meaning and adds degrees without depth.”
