Every year, Guwahati—the biggest city in Northeast India and the gateway to the region—welcomes thousands of stu-dents from all eight states to take admission in colleges and universities. Many of them stay back in the city after completing their regular study to prepare for competitive examinations for central and state government jobs from a raft of coaching centres that, over the years, have mushroomed, like any other big city.

While the Covid-induced lockdowns have compelled many big coaching institutes to shut shop, many others, earlier having little traction among students, started flourishing. According to Sankar Ray, an educator and director of Ray Academy, a coaching centre for state and central administrative services, those institutes that could adopt to the new mode of online learning could survive the pandemic while those that couldn’t, were left behind.

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Talking to Outlook, Ray says, “Many coaching centres could not adapt to the change that Cov-id lockdowns brought to the sector, like shifting from offline mode to online. Since change is the only constant, if you can’t adapt to a new envir-onment, you will perish.”

Ray’s statement is supported by numerous examples. Coaching centres with shiny hoardings, flashing mugs and numbers of their successful students cracking government exams, have run aground, while small institutions with fewer number of students are slowly coming up to occupy the space, as reputed institutions that ban-ked on the conventional offline mode of tea-ching could not adapt to the new age learning mode. Many could not produce material or inst-ruction for online classes. Comparatively new institutes run by educators well versed in the new age learning tools benefitted from the cha-nge. They collaborated with reputed educators from outside the region to attract more stude-nts. Many coaching centres which are branches of bigger brands headquartered elsewhere, cou-ld import quality online material and decentralise learning. Coaching centres which exited the competitive market were mostly home-grown ones, which could not avail digital support.

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Noorjahan Begum, 45, is a domestic help at a girls’ hostel in Islampur area of the city. Begum, a single mother, does not know how to operate a smartphone herself, but has bought one for her 17-year-old daughter, Majani Begum, who is stu-dying in Class XII. Recently, her mother also got her enrolled in a coaching centre for bank clerical examinations.

“Though I had been thinking of enrolling her in a coaching centre for the past one year, since her board examinations, I could not because after her class if she went to the tuition, it wou-ld be dark on her way home. Till Class X, I had always accompanied her to school in the morning. I’d only go to work afterwards. Again, I wou-ld bring her back from school. I can’t think of sending her to class after 4-5 pm alone because of safety issues.”

For parents like Noorjahan, the online mode of teaching was a boon, in a state that has reco-r-ded the highest number of crimes against wom-en for the fourth consecutive term in 2020, acc-ording to the National Crime Records Bur-eau (NCRB). “For me and my girl, online classes are good. Now after school she can learn from home,” Noorjahan added.

Like Noorjahan, many parents who earlier had not sent their daughters to coaching classes for various reasons like finance and safety are now getting them enrolled in online coaching classes, which they can avail from the safety of their homes. According to Jagat Jyoti Bora, who runs the coaching centre BSC Academy in Bel-t-ola area of the city, said that the gender ratio of his institute roughly stands at 40:60. A quick survey says this ratio varies by 5 per cent above or below across all institutes.

In his institute established in 2012, classes for central government exams like Railways, LIC, SSC or banking exams etc. have higher percentage of male students. However, in classes for sta-te government exams to Grade 2 or 3 jobs, female students outnumber the boys.

“I have recently started a course aiming at the Assam Direct Recruitment Exam, under which over 26,000 posts in various Grade 3 and Grade 4 posts of the government will be filled up. In this class, there are lot of women candidates. Many are married and some are even mothers. The reason behind this is that the eligible age limit is up to the late 30s.”

The fewer number of wom-en in central government job courses, according to Bora, is because of the age bar. Many women do not get to prepare for competitive examinations like railways, SSC, banking etc. in their early twenties due to various reasons, marriage being a prime one. These aspirants try their luck in state government exams.

“So there are courses where you would find fewer women candidates where the age limit is low, but more where the age limit is not restricted to 27-28 years,” he said.

However, the shifting dynamics of coaching classes in terms of their hybrid mode of operations post-Covid, is attracting more and more female aspirants to prepare for different jobs through these centres, irrespective of their age.

Ray, who has recently launched an online cou-rse for a state government exams, says the onl-ine mode is catalysing more female aspirants, especially from rural areas.

“In my organisation we have recently started a new online batch for government exams where we have 102 students. Out of them, 70-80 aspirants are female. Around 30 are working professionals and 30-20 are mothers. This is the ben-e-fit of online mode of learning. This can be suitable for females who have to take to care of the house, kids and still want to pursue their dreams without spending more money in travel and accommodation.”

Apart from creating space for more female aspirants, the new age coaching centres through their online learning mode are also giving a chance for quality control to educators. While earlier the teaching of an educator was limited to the four walls of a classroom making it difficult to evaluate the quality, the online mode gives a chance to constantly review the quality.

“Everyone can see a video put up online. So there is a lot of quality control that can happen online.” Ray added.

However, coaching centres in Guwahati are often blamed for not being able to demonstrate desired results. Mosfika Hussain, a senior academic consultant feels lack of psychometric evaluation of students by a qualified counsellor while enrolling for a course is one of the major reasons? why coaching centres are proving to be less effective in Tier 2 cities like Guwahati. She feels every student should be entitled to a psychometric test in their school and college, to get into the right kind of coaching classes.

Talking to Outlook, Hussain says, “While these days, sch-ools and colleges have a cou-nsellor’s room, if you go and see closely you would find in most cases, a teacher is filling in. But they don’t have the qualification of a counsellor. So the students stay clueless after school and colleges on how to choose the right courses that fits their interest”

Hussain, who has been counselling hundreds of students and their parents annually to help them take a wise decision while choosing a career path, stated that in many lower income families, if the parents cannot afford coaching classes for all the children, it is then mostly the boy that gets preference. She also said that even if a girl is sent for coaching, she would be sent for a short-term courses. This reveals another trend. In most coaching institutes, number of female students in short-term courses is the same as male students, if not higher. However, in long-term courses, e.g one year or more, the number of male students is many times higher.

“I have two daughters and one son. I married off the elder one after she completed her Higher Secondary. The other one is studying in Class XI. I want the son to get a government job. It’s not that I don’t love my daughters. But for families like ours, we cannot afford higher education for three children. So we chose the boy. Once he gets a job he will look after us,” says Deka, a man in his fifties who runs a small laundry shop in the Sur-vey area of the city. Deka has recently got his 22-year-old son enrolled for an eight-month-long course for various posts of Assam Public Service Commission. It cost him Rs 30,000. Deka’s monthly income is Rs 7,000 to Rs 9,000.

Clearly, Assamese parents are warming up to online tutorials for their kids.?

(This appeared in the print edition as "Going Online in Guwahati")