Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Experience with Aakash Coaching in Kanpur

As usual due to pressure from kids and family, aakash coaching was joined by my daughter. She went through two year of classroom coaching in her XI and XII class. She could not score well and decided to drop a year and decided to join Aakash coaching again. This year also, she could not make it. Based on my observations, I could figure out what happens in the coaching. Put a bit of game theory in your reasoning and it becomes very clear.

The coaching institutes need to make money and they are there to make money and not improve the students' ability so that they have higher probability of qualifying the exams. In case a institute has 200 students and all of them qualify, does it make a difference in thier earning. Probably not. The expected profit maximizes at some value of x% of successful students. This x is about 10%. The choice of x is such that the demand for coaching is maintained. Making it 100% requires much more effort and much less incremental gain.

So normally, what happens, the coaching institutes focus on top 10% and analyses their answers to find why they are giving those answers. They adapt their interactions only on this basis. Consequently, if your kid is not in top 5%, the chances of his success falls drastically. The larger the batch size, the drastic will be the fall. While, all students are capable to qualify but the remedial efforts for them needs more efforts and they are simply left. I am not comfortable with this business mindset of coaching centers. My observation is on the basis of Aakash Coaching in Kanpur. It seems some coachings like super-30, keep this x as 100% and achieve much higher success rate (almost 100%).

Another bad thing which I felt is done in coaching, is to tell students to prepare only for certain stuff which is expected to lead to better score. So, they leave some topics and chapter. While, each students should be directed to study the stuff where he is weaker, thus making him ready for worst case scenario.

Also, a myth is propagated among students that all students are not equally capable. So if 5 to 10% percent are doing well in practice exams, then the others do'nt bother the instructors by making more efforts and then bothering them.

This amazing ecosystems is somehow gets created in the coaching, may be unknowingly, thus large number of students end up in considering themselves incapable or do not perform upto their capability.

In my opinion, DLP with practice examination series may be a good option, unless you are in top 5-10% of coaching class. Only thing to be fixed is to find someone who can study how your kid has arrived at the solution and identify the problem in the concepts and fix them up with appropriate advice.

Alternatively, find a coaching institute where your kid is in top 5% and where he is encouraged to continuously improve. Going into coaching center where already there is large crowd, reduces your chances unless your are in top 5%.