Coaching Factory Problem: How India Turned Learning into a Race
India, a country with the world’s largest young population, carries immense aspirations on its shoulders. Parents dream of seeing their children as doctors, engineers, bureaucrats, or global leaders. Students spend their childhoods and teenage years preparing for a future defined not by curiosity or creativity, but by the outcome of a few high-stakes exams. And at the center of this system stands what many call India’s “Coaching Factory” culture—a parallel universe of private coaching institutes that have transformed learning into a race.
This culture dominates towns like Kota in Rajasthan, spreads across urban and semi-urban India, and now flourishes online. While it fuels success stories of toppers who conquer exams like IIT-JEE and NEET, it also raises questions: At what cost? Who gets left behind? And what happens when learning itself becomes secondary to the pursuit of ranks?
Let’s dive into the numbers, stories, and consequences of India’s obsession with coaching.
The Scale of Coaching in India
The magnitude of India’s coaching culture is staggering. According to the latest Comprehensive Modular Survey (CMS) 2025 conducted by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, nearly one in three school students in India takes private coaching. The figure rises sharply in urban areas where 30.7% of students seek extra classes, compared to 25.5% in rural regions.
At the higher secondary level—the most crucial stage for competitive exams—coaching dominates. About 44.6% of urban students in Classes 11 and 12 enroll in coaching, while 33.1% of rural students do the same. Nationally, almost 37% of students at this level depend on external coaching to survive the academic pressure.
The financial dimension reveals another side of the story. Families in urban areas spend an average of ₹3,988 per student annually on coaching, while rural households spend about ₹1,793. Across the country, the average household spends ₹2,409 per student each year on coaching alone. This is on top of regular education expenses. For urban households, the total annual expenditure on education reaches ₹15,143 per student, while rural households spend around ₹3,979.
Zooming out, India’s coaching industry is a massive business. In 2024, the coaching market stood at USD 6.5 billion, and projections suggest it will soar to USD 17.4 billion by 2033, growing at a compound annual growth rate of over 10%. Online coaching is even more explosive. Valued at USD 437.64 million in 2024, it is expected to cross USD 1.93 billion by 2033, expanding at nearly 17% CAGR. Another research estimate valued the Indian coaching industry at ₹58,088 crore in 2022, with projections to hit ₹1,33,995 crore by 2028.
These numbers confirm one truth: coaching has become an inseparable part of Indian education.
Why Coaching Became the Default
Several powerful forces created this coaching ecosystem:
- High-stakes exams
The Indian education system places enormous weight on competitive exams. The IIT-JEE decides who enters elite engineering institutions. NEET controls entry to medical colleges. UPSC defines bureaucratic futures. When one exam can shape an entire life, students and parents chase every advantage coaching can provide. - Gaps in school education
Many schools fail to offer the rigor required for these exams. Overcrowded classrooms, limited teacher attention, outdated teaching methods, and rote-heavy curricula push students to seek help outside. Parents see coaching as insurance against systemic weaknesses. - Cultural obsession with education
In Indian households, education equals stability and status. Parents push children into coaching not just for knowledge, but as a ticket to upward mobility. Stories of toppers becoming IITians or doctors fuel this obsession. - The commercialization of education
Coaching has turned into a profitable industry. Institutions market themselves aggressively, boast of top results, and often guarantee success. This commercialization has created cut-throat competition not only among students but also among coaching brands. - The rise of EdTech
Technology lowered barriers. Online platforms made coaching available in villages and small towns. After COVID-19, digital coaching became mainstream, giving birth to hybrid models where students split their time between physical classrooms and online sessions.
The Cost of the Coaching Race
The benefits of coaching—better exam prep, exposure to competition, and sometimes improved outcomes—come at enormous costs.
1. Financial Burden
For middle-class families, coaching fees eat up a significant chunk of disposable income. Many parents sacrifice lifestyle comforts, dip into savings, or even take loans to fund coaching. Poorer households simply cannot afford high-quality coaching, which widens inequality.
2. Mental Health Crisis
The pressure to perform destroys balance. Students spend 10–12 hours daily in classrooms or study halls. Sleep shrinks, physical activity disappears, and anxiety takes root. In hubs like Kota, student suicides make headlines almost every year. Courts and governments have started recognizing coaching as a mental health challenge, not just an educational one.
3. Distorted Learning
Coaching often teaches strategies, not understanding. Students learn “how to crack” exams rather than why concepts matter. The culture of rote memorization and shortcut tricks undermines creativity and curiosity. Education becomes training for tests rather than preparation for life.
4. Social Inequality
Urban and wealthy students gain access to the best institutes, while rural and poorer children remain disadvantaged. This creates a two-tier system: one for those who can pay for extra help and another for those left to depend solely on underfunded schools.
5. Lost Childhoods
Students in Classes 9–12 sacrifice hobbies, friendships, and leisure. For many, adolescence revolves entirely around coaching classes, hostel rooms, and exam prep. The opportunity cost is immeasurable.
Recent Shifts in Coaching Culture
Regulation and Laws
Governments now recognize the dangers of unchecked coaching. Rajasthan, home to Kota, introduced the Rajasthan Coaching Centres (Control and Regulation) Act, 2025. The law requires coaching institutes to register, sets minimum standards, restricts misleading advertising, mandates mental health support, and gives authorities power to monitor fees and student welfare. The central government also issued nationwide guidelines in 2024 for registration and regulation of coaching centres.
Courts have also stepped in. The Rajasthan High Court condemned the rise of “dummy schools”—institutions where students enroll only on paper but spend all their time in coaching centres. Judges called them a threat to the education system and ordered strict surveillance and inspections.
Focus on Mental Health
In early 2025, public interest litigations forced courts to ask state governments what measures they have taken to support student mental health in schools and coaching centres. Judges highlighted shocking statistics of youth suicides in Rajasthan, demanding accountability and counselling systems.
Results and Reputation
Despite criticism, coaching hubs like Kota continue to produce toppers. In NEET-UG 2025, one leading institute from Kota produced 39 students in the top 100, with several in the top 10. This paradox shows the double-edged nature of coaching—it delivers results, but also breeds unsustainable pressure.
Decline in Numbers
Interestingly, the strict regulations and growing awareness of mental health have reduced the number of students in Kota in recent years. Reports suggest the population of coaching students in the city has dropped from 2–2.5 lakh in earlier years to around 85,000–1,00,000 today. Revenues of institutes fell from ₹6,500–7,000 crore annually to about ₹3,500 crore, a 50% decline.
Rise of Online Coaching
At the same time, online coaching has grown rapidly. Students who earlier flocked to Kota now log into apps and hybrid platforms. Online coaching promises flexibility and affordability, though critics argue it also extends the reach of exam-centric learning rather than solving the root problem.
Kota: The Symbol of India’s Coaching Culture
No discussion of India’s coaching industry is complete without Kota. The city became the country’s coaching capital, attracting lakhs of students every year. Hostels, messes, stationary shops, and entire neighborhoods revolve around this ecosystem. Families rent rooms and send teenagers away for years to chase IIT or AIIMS dreams.
But Kota also symbolizes the crisis. The city witnessed an alarming number of student suicides linked to stress, loneliness, and unrealistic expectations. To tackle this, authorities introduced mandatory counselling sessions, hostel regulations, and regular monitoring. While these steps helped, the larger problem remained: when education is reduced to a factory model, pressure inevitably crushes some students.
Can India Reform Coaching Culture?
Solving the coaching problem requires systemic changes rather than piecemeal fixes.
- Strengthen Schools
- Improve teacher training.
- Reduce classroom sizes.
- Modernize curriculum to prioritize understanding and problem-solving.
- Offer in-school test preparation so students don’t need external coaching.
- Regulate Coaching
- Make registration mandatory across states.
- Cap fees and ensure transparency in advertising.
- Set maximum working hours and ensure rest periods.
- Enforce student welfare guidelines like counselling, safe hostels, and balanced schedules.
- Promote Equity
- Offer free or subsidized coaching through public institutions.
- Provide scholarships and digital access for disadvantaged students.
- Create regional centers so students don’t have to migrate and bear additional costs.
- Address Mental Health
- Place counsellors in every coaching hub.
- Train teachers to identify stress and intervene early.
- Educate parents about signs of burnout and depression.
- Rethink Exams
- Reduce dependence on single high-stakes exams.
- Introduce multiple pathways to higher education, including continuous assessments, portfolios, and aptitude tests.
- Evaluate students holistically instead of only through ranks and marks.
Global Lessons
Other countries offer lessons for India. China, for instance, cracked down on after-school tutoring in 2021 under the “double reduction” policy to reduce student workload and costs for parents. While implementation faced challenges, it showed that governments can intervene decisively to protect children from extreme academic pressure.
East Asian countries like South Korea and Japan also grapple with shadow education, but they invest heavily in public school quality and regulate tutoring hours. India can adapt similar strategies by combining strong schools with controlled coaching.
The Road Ahead
The Indian coaching industry will not vanish overnight. The demand for competitive exams will continue, and as long as stakes remain high, parents and students will chase every advantage. But India stands at a crossroads. It can either allow coaching to remain a commercial race that breeds stress and inequality, or it can reform its education system to integrate the good while eliminating the bad.
The numbers show the urgency. One-third of students already depend on coaching. Families spend thousands of rupees annually. The industry is projected to triple in less than a decade. Without intervention, the coaching culture will deepen inequality, erode holistic education, and push more students into mental health crises.
Yet there is hope. Regulation has begun. Courts have spoken. Parents and policymakers increasingly acknowledge the mental cost. If India strengthens schools, regulates coaching, and redefines success, it can transform learning from a race into a journey.
Conclusion
India’s “Coaching Factory” problem reflects both aspiration and anxiety. It shows the hunger of millions for better futures but also the cracks in the nation’s formal education system. Coaching has become a parallel economy, a lifeline for some and a burden for many.
When learning becomes a race, the winners may shine, but the system leaves countless others behind. India must now decide whether it wants to keep running in circles or build an education system where every student learns with purpose, balance, and dignity.
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