Rajasthan
Emerging Coaching Hub: Emerging coaching hub seeks better infra, safety measures
Flashy billboards on either side of the national highway passing through Sikar feature larger-than-life pictures of young men and women who have cracked prestigious examinations such as NEET, IIT, CLAT, RAS and CDS. These advertisements and the many one sees along the streets in Sikar city conjure up a semblance of Kota, the country’s largest coaching hub some 380 km away.
For a city known for long for its havelis and then a supplier of workforce to the Middle East and a “centre of the Communist party in India’s West”, the transformation into a hub of cutting-age coaching institutes giving those in Kota a run for their money has been phenomenal. The fast-changing cityscape surprise not only outsiders and old-timers but also longtime Sikar residents.
Each coaching institute in Sikar strives to outshine the others with promises of guidance from top-notch subject experts and unparalleled results in competitive exams. The competition inside the classrooms spills over into the tapestry of advertisements dotting the city’s streets.
Allen Career Institute, coaching giant in Kota, has transformed two wedding halls in Sikar into a centre buzzing with 10,000 students in shifts running from 8am to 8pm. At a ‘Doubt Centre,’ a venue designed to dispel the doubts students face in their subjects, students are seen poring over books and notebooks as instructors guide them.
Suhani Singh, a student from Jaipur’s Mansarovar, is ecstatic to have mastered the ways to solve lists of questions from last week’s lectures. She came to Sikar in June after her cousin said the city has better teachers than Jaipur. “I preferred Sikar to Kota. Kota is overcrowded with students, and my parents said a clear no to that city due to the raging problem of student suicides there,” explained Suhani.
Kumari Kalpana Singh, a student from Vidisha who came for coaching last year, said, “Sikar serves my two top purposes. I have taken admission in a residential school to pursue my hobby of horse riding and prepare for NEET simultaneously.”
Asserting that Sikar is emerging as a foremost coaching city, Shiv Bhagwan, director at a premier institute, said, “The town already had several quality schools built by its native businessmen and entrepreneurs, giving it the identity of an education city. With the coaching institutes reaching here, the combination has become an unparalleled opportunity for students keen on making it big academically.”
Amid Sikar’s continuing ascent to match up to Kota’s coaching glory, there are concerns about infrastructural support coming short of the new economic model. “Without enough infrastructural support from the state government, Sikar’s position as a fast-rising coaching hub may collapse. Piprali Road area, which is the centre of coaching institutes, gets flooded every rainy season, increasing the chances of accidents,” said the director of a coaching institute.
After a coaching student died by falling into a flooded pothole in Sikar during the last monsoon, the institutes were forced to close for many days till the water receded. “In the absence of a proper public transport system, students ride two-wheelers to their institutes and back, running the risk of accidents, road rage, and rowdiness in a city where traffic if often chaotic.
“We have written to the administration to allocate an area for coaching institutes like in Jaipur. The changing needs of the industry here must be fulfilled,” said the in-charge of a coaching institute.
For a city known for long for its havelis and then a supplier of workforce to the Middle East and a “centre of the Communist party in India’s West”, the transformation into a hub of cutting-age coaching institutes giving those in Kota a run for their money has been phenomenal. The fast-changing cityscape surprise not only outsiders and old-timers but also longtime Sikar residents.
Each coaching institute in Sikar strives to outshine the others with promises of guidance from top-notch subject experts and unparalleled results in competitive exams. The competition inside the classrooms spills over into the tapestry of advertisements dotting the city’s streets.
Allen Career Institute, coaching giant in Kota, has transformed two wedding halls in Sikar into a centre buzzing with 10,000 students in shifts running from 8am to 8pm. At a ‘Doubt Centre,’ a venue designed to dispel the doubts students face in their subjects, students are seen poring over books and notebooks as instructors guide them.
Suhani Singh, a student from Jaipur’s Mansarovar, is ecstatic to have mastered the ways to solve lists of questions from last week’s lectures. She came to Sikar in June after her cousin said the city has better teachers than Jaipur. “I preferred Sikar to Kota. Kota is overcrowded with students, and my parents said a clear no to that city due to the raging problem of student suicides there,” explained Suhani.
Kumari Kalpana Singh, a student from Vidisha who came for coaching last year, said, “Sikar serves my two top purposes. I have taken admission in a residential school to pursue my hobby of horse riding and prepare for NEET simultaneously.”
Asserting that Sikar is emerging as a foremost coaching city, Shiv Bhagwan, director at a premier institute, said, “The town already had several quality schools built by its native businessmen and entrepreneurs, giving it the identity of an education city. With the coaching institutes reaching here, the combination has become an unparalleled opportunity for students keen on making it big academically.”
Amid Sikar’s continuing ascent to match up to Kota’s coaching glory, there are concerns about infrastructural support coming short of the new economic model. “Without enough infrastructural support from the state government, Sikar’s position as a fast-rising coaching hub may collapse. Piprali Road area, which is the centre of coaching institutes, gets flooded every rainy season, increasing the chances of accidents,” said the director of a coaching institute.
After a coaching student died by falling into a flooded pothole in Sikar during the last monsoon, the institutes were forced to close for many days till the water receded. “In the absence of a proper public transport system, students ride two-wheelers to their institutes and back, running the risk of accidents, road rage, and rowdiness in a city where traffic if often chaotic.
“We have written to the administration to allocate an area for coaching institutes like in Jaipur. The changing needs of the industry here must be fulfilled,” said the in-charge of a coaching institute.
