Wake up at 6 am. Study for an hour or practice maths. Go to school between 9 am and 4 pm. Go to coaching classes from 5 pm to 8.30 pm. Study between 10 pm and 12 midnight.” This was Desi Raju Sai Karthik’s schedule for a year. As a student of 12th standard with IIT aspirations, he like thousands of other students in the country, barely slept, played a sport, spent time with his friends and family. He didn’t even watch television.
“If I relaxed then I had to either miss school or coaching classes and everything around me collapsed,” he says. The pressure was intense. Srivatsa Ram Mohan concurs with this view: “By 9 pm you are so tired, you don’t even want to study. You don’t even have time to write the lab records.”
Extracurricular activities are relegated to the back burner. Shamal Bantwal, talking about her daughter Yamini Bantwal says, “She used to learn music and the piano. All of that stopped completely. There really is no time for anything”. Sai Karthik agrees, “Extra-curricular activities in school also stopped by October. There were tests at school and at the coaching centre. Towards the end, by December, it got really chaotic.”
Given the pressure, what is the attraction that beckons people to these tuition classes, you wonder? Ram Mohan answers: “They pay individual attention.”
Krishnamurthy, who runs a popular tuition centre in the City, told Metrolife that the reason his classes are popular was because “school teachers are not up to the mark. First, the students need to be taught basic concepts. The schools don't do that. They teach whatever is in the syllabus. We teach the concepts. We start from the basics.”
While there may be some truth in this, there are many who believe that parents send their kids to tuitions as it makes them feel more secure. Many like Shabarish Chandramouli believe it’s possible to study by oneself and still score over 95 per cent. Chandramouli says, “Tuitions are time consuming. I saw a lot of my friends going to tuitions. My basic policy was to pay attention in class. I would study for another hour and a half at home. I could set my own pace. I would study for a bit then go out for a walk, come back and start again. It really took the pressure off.”
On the other hand is Priyanka Jayaram, who believes that tuitions take the pressure off. “You come here, sit with your friends, laugh and enjoy. And study. Since you study in a relaxed manner, you learn better.”
