Rajasthan: Bill to regulate coaching centres yet to be tabled in House | Jaipur News
The bill drafted by a five member committee of academicians, sociologists, and psychologists mandate compulsory counselling sessions for students to de-stress them to prevent suicides and penal provisions for errant coaching centres. The committee was chaired by then VC Jai Narain Vyas University PC Trivedi and drafted by a professor at MLS University in Udaipur Sanjay Lodha.
Suicides by three students in Kota on Sunday were not the first as the state has long ignored this matter of concern. The delay in bringing an Act regulating the coaching centres with strict provisions to provide a stress-free ecosystem to students is a collective failure of the state’s lawmakers. If the issue continues to be ignored, it will not only dent the state’s image, but can also hit the coaching sector that has evolved as a full-fledged industry generating employment opportunities for lakhs.
In April 2022, chief secretary Usha Sharma and principal secretary of higher education Bhawani Singh Detha cleared the bill again with minor changes, but it was not tabled during the monsoon session.
“I was approached by the government in June 2020 to become a part of a committee to formulate a bill regulating coaching institutes. The committee members held back-to-back virtual meetings and prepared the draft in August and expected it to become a law in the following assembly session. Since then, some minor changes were made by us, but the bill has not moved even an inch during this long period,” said one of the committee members, who claimed this is first of its kind bill in India.
The bill has several harsh provisions which could be the reason that it didn’t make it to the assembly under the pressure from the coaching centre lobby. The coaching institutes in the hubs like Kota, Jaipur and Sikar enjoy complete freedom from fixing the fees, study hours, and salaries of teaching and non-teaching staff and can publicize anything or claim anything with no accountability.
The bill mandates that a state-level committee headed by a noted academician with its members from different departments regulate fees, and salaries, enforce the provisions of mandatory aptitude tests, weekly off, fixed study hours, prescribed limits in classrooms, no glorification of toppers, no false claims and mandatory counselling. It also includes mandatory training on bad touch and good touch for girl students. The provision of legal action and heavy penalties upto Rs 2 crore has been kept in the bill to hold those accountable.
“Our entire exercise was meant to bind the coaching institutes and local administration to create a stress-free environment for students. The exercise will be wasted If it will not become a law,” added the committee member.
TOI called and texted principal secretary Detha and Kota collector OP Bunkar for their comments but in vain.
Instead, the state government has followed a casual approach by placing ‘Guidelines for Coaching Institutes’ brought in October 2022. Compared to the bill, the guidelines are lenient and do not hold anyone accountable nor do these have any provision for punishment or even a financial penalty in case of suicides.
Prateek Kasliwal, an advocate based in Jaipur termed the guidelines as a ‘Toothless Tiger’ which doesn’t have any statutory backing and no action follows in case of breach of guidelines. “The law is always backed by statutory bodies and invites punishment or penalty in case of its violation. In many cases, the guidelines are taken as just a piece of advisory. ”
