The other Kotas: Inside the new NEET, JEE coaching hubs

SIKAR, JAIPUR: When Sonal Sharma* moved to Sikar from neighbouring Jhunjhunu in 2019 to finish school while preparing for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET UG), the small, provincial town in Rajasthan had only about six-seven coaching institutes and 10-12 hostels.

“Over the last five years, 10-20 more coaching institutes have come up and around 30-40 new hostels,” she said. Most of the coaching institutions are located on the eastern edge of the town, on Piprali Road that connects Sikar town to the next one, Piprali. Set 121 km from the state capital Jaipur, and even farther from India’s bustling coaching hub, Kota, Sikar is emerging as another major coaching hub and in the same pattern.

The first centre, Career Line Coaching (CLC) opened in 1996. Another Sikar major, Gurukripa Institute, came up in 2008. But most of the action happened over the past few years. Several Kota-origin stalwarts, including Unacademy, DS Institute, and Physics Wallah’s Vidyapeeth & Paathshala, have set up centres here; the last came up just six months ago. Allen Career Institute (more popularly known as Allen Kota Rajasthan) and Matrix JEE Academy have centres here too.

“When I joined the institute in 2021, there were far fewer students and teachers focused on every student in the class. But now with an increase in aspirants, the city in the last two years has seen a sudden rise in students preparing for NEET,” said Sharma.

“When we see large crowds of students ushered in for tests and get stressed even after preparing for months,” she added. Sharma was unable to qualify in 2023 and appeared for NEET 2024.

“In April, every year, you can see a sudden increase in the flow of families bringing their children for admissions. But you will mostly find students from nearby areas like Fatehpur, Madhopur, Neem-Ka-Thana and nearby areas of Rajasthan,” said the owner of a juice stall on Piprali road.

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Beyond Kota

In 2023, around 20 lakh aspirants sat for NEET UG and in 2024, around 24 lakh registered for it. While every city and town will have NEET coaching centres, only a few earn the reputation of being a “coaching hub” with large numbers of institutions drawing students from across states.

Kota has been a hub for decades and also the setting of many suicides among youths preparing for various exams but mainly, NEET and the Joint Entrance Examinations (JEE Main and JEE Advanced) for engineering, in its institutes. In 2023 and 2024 (till early May), as many as 32 students getting coached for NEET and JEE have died by suicide in Kota.

As more coaching hubs spring up across the country – in Sikar and Akola, Maharashtra – there are concerns about them eventually going the same way as Kota. In 2024 alone, Kota’s best-known institutes, Allen Kota and Motion Education, opened branches in Patna (Bihar), Jaipur (Rajasthan), Akola (Maharashtra), Chandigarh and elsewhere.

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Sikar: ‘A very big hub’

In Sikar, opinion is divided on how like or unlike Kota it is.

Although the cases drew far less attention, in 2023, it saw three suicides. “Each student has their own story,” said Bakul Dev, who heads CLC’s Jaipur branch. He said Sikar has about one lakh students preparing for exams this year. “It is a very big hub.”

But unlike Kota, it caters mainly to students from within Rajasthan. Dev also insists its study environment is different from Kota’s as well, partly due to the composition of its student body.

“Sikar has an integrated study culture. All the institutes have their hostels within their supervision. Because of this integrated system, stress-buster activities happen constantly… In
Sikar, suicide cases are negligible. Because in Kota, a huge crowd comes from outside. The area is overcrowded and this has led to drug issues and other problems,” he said.

This is echoed by some students.

“Kota is no longer a safe place,” said Kartik Mishra, 17 and attending Matrix JEE Academy in Sikar. “This is the advantage of Sikar. It still has a small-town culture. Mainly students from rural areas of Haryana and Rajasthan come to Sikar, who are quite hard working.”

It isn’t any cheaper than Kota, with a year’s coaching coming at Rs 1-1.5 lakh, but the rural setting doesn’t leave students with much to do other than study, said Virendra Singh whose daughter attends Gurukripa.

But those who have witnessed the sharp uptick in numbers of students and institutes fear it may not be long before Sikar loses that distinction. Sharma said that with the increase in students, mental health issues have risen but are hidden. Also, while Sikar may be safer, it is also more oppressive. Life in hostels and coaching centres is strictly regimented and outsiders are met with stares and suspicion.

“There are suicide cases but are hidden from other institutes,” she said. Students who need help with managing stress and disappointment are faced with an insensitive system ill-equipped to handle their problems.

The guidelines suggested in the wake of the Kota suicides have been implemented but are clearly not enough. Sharma had once approached a councillor after scoring poorly in a test who proved to be singularly unhelpful. “One of the councillors demotivated me, asking why I am preparing if the scores are not coming. They said I should abandon my preparation and do something else,” she recalled.

There’s another key difference. Most Sikar teachers teach in Hindi. Because of its “rural area” status, many students come from Hindi-medium schools.

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Bright students, parents

When each institute had fewer students, they received personal attention from teachers. But now, with more numbers and competition, that’s getting harder. “Eventually, during the exam time, teachers focus on students who are bright and leave the others behind. At least some focus should be given to this lot as well,” said Mishra.

Like in Kota, Sikar is now a temporary home to dozens of reluctant examinees, forced into studying for NEET and JEE by their parents. “These students eventually fail and attempt suicide. Parents should be okay if children don’t crack the exam,” said Sharma, “I think Sikar will be the next Kota with this kind of environment.”

Singh agreed. “With the rise in students year-on-year, there are doubts about how the city will manage when thousands of students come. The question is how to constantly motivate them to keep studying hard with such an increase in competition. It will be difficult to manage these students overall,” he said.

Alongside traditional coaching centres, there are now “mentorship” centres. NEET Kaka JEE, under the banner of Cellsius Institute whose main branch is in Ajmer, offers free offline mentorship. “This is the first offline mentorship centre in Sikar,” claimed centre head Narendra Kumar. The small centre in Sikar provides study materials along with subject and concept-wise charts for students. The institute opened its first mentorship centre in Kota in December 2023. Its first offline coaching centre in Ajmer started in 2015-16.

Budding hubs

Smaller cities are now turning into new hubs, said Rohan Agarwal, founder of Radical Academy in Akola, Maharashtra. Among these are Akola and Latur in Maharashtra. In Akola, the first institutes appeared around 2016.

Allen opened its Akola branch in December 2023. “In this area, institutes like IITians PACE (Professional Academy for Competitive Exams) [now called “PACE IIT & Medical”] are the renowned regional names but with the arrival of Allen, many smaller coaching centres are losing business,” said Agarwal.

“When these big institutes open branches in smaller towns, around 2,000-2,500 students get admitted just because of the brand name,” he added.

With deeper pockets, they pay teachers well, can spend on better facilities, and offer scholarships. “Smaller and newly-opened institutes face challenges in this,” he added. Agarwal taught in various centres before setting up his own.

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Patna, Jaipur

Patna, best-known for coaching for government jobs, also tutors its share of students appearing in admission tests. “Many students come from nearby areas of Patna,” said Sunny Bhatia, 18, and a NEET aspirant from Patna. He is registered at Goal Institute which has branches in Muzaffarpur, Delhi, Patna, Raipur and Dhanbad.

Unlike the massive classes with hundreds of students in a class in Sikar and Kota, Patna has around 100-150, said Bhatia. “But the overall number is quite high, with around 22,000 students preparing for the students in 2024 at our institute. The stress level is still there but not as high as Kota,” he added.

Agarwal is unhappy with the standard of instruction the new, “big-brand” entrants are bringing to coaching in the new hubs. “Setting up a coaching centre is so easy because there is no national policy. There should be some criteria and basic eligibility requirements,” he said. “In these big institutes, teachers are given scripts to follow, word-for-word in a class, including the jokes, without using any brain at all.”