With dismal basic education and a bleak job market, private tuition offer aspirational youngsters the best shot at clearing government recruitment tests.
The Annual Status of Education Report, 2023, released in January, highlights the dismal state of learning outcomes among rural children between the ages of 14-18 years.
The report found that rural students struggled with basic arithmetic and reading and comprehending the meaning of simple English words and sentences.
Such a lack of foundational and critical thinking skills at the school education level has necessitated a reliance on private coaching, the only fallback to support the aspirations of the upward mobility-seeking rural youth, especially in the Hindi-speaking belt of India.
That coaching institutions and paid, private tuition classes are in such high demand also reflects the unemployment crisis among India’s young population.
by Santosh Mehrotra & Rakesh Ranjan Kumar
28/03/2024