Unregulated tuitions thrive in B'luru; safety, quality key concerns

When the final bell at school rings in the evening, a large number of students in the city rush out and make a beeline for tuition centres instead of heading home.

A majority of these institutions though are unregistered and function without any authority regulating them.

The Karnataka Tutorial Institutions (Registration and Regulation) Rules, 2001, said all tutorials should register themselves with the competent authority. However, implementation of the same is poor.

There are only nine tutorial institutions registered with the deputy director of public instruction (DDPI) Bengaluru South. All of them were registered in the 2012-13 academic year and eight of them are branches of the same tutorial centre. Similarly, only nine institutions have registered themselves with the DDPI North from 2009 to 2013. “We have not received complaints in this office about any tutorials in our jurisdiction. If we receive a complaint, we will take action,” said the DDPI South.

According to rules, registered tuition centres are required to send an annual report to the registering authority, within two months of the end of the academic year. However, none of the nine tutorials registered with the office of the DDPI South has submitted the report.

“A large number of schools come under our jurisdiction and we have a lot of other responsibilities. So, we are not able to direct our attention to tuition centres,” an official in the department said.

Lack of regulation raises concerns over the quality of teaching and safety of students. “Tuition centres are everywhere. People run them even from their homes and they go unnoticed by regulating authorities,” said Nibedita Ray Sahoo, a parent.

Though parents send their children to tuitions in the hope of better performance in academics, there is no guarantee that tutorials will be helpful as there is no check on the quality of teachers there.

“There is no regulation on the number of students enrolled in a single class. The safety of the children is also a concern,” she said.

DH News Service