No intake of students below 16 years, no misleading promises: Guidelines for coaching centres

New Delhi: Coaching centres cannot enrol students below 16 years of age, employ tutors who are not graduates, make misleading promises or guarantee good marks and rank and publish details of students who attend classes, the guidelines issued by the union government on Thursday said.

In a bid to reduce stress, the guidelines said there should be weekly off for students as well as tutors and no assessment-test or exam should be held the day after weekly off. 

Classes should not be conducted for more than five hours in a day and the coaching hours should neither be too early in the morning nor too late in the evening.

The guidelines were shared by the Ministry of Education with states and union territories, as such centres are "best regulated by the state governments by way of appropriate legal framework".

The rationale behind preparing the guidelines was the rising number of unregulated private coaching centres in the absence of any regulation and reporting of instances of such institutes charging exorbitant fees, putting undue stress resulting in students committing suicides and loss of lives due to fire and other accidents.

"No coaching centre shall engage tutors having qualifications less than graduation. The institutions cannot make misleading promises or guarantee rank or good marks to parents for enrolling students in the coaching centres. The institutes cannot enrol students below 16 years of age. Student enrolment should be only after secondary school examination," the guidelines said.

"The coaching institutes cannot publish or cause to be published or take part in the publication of any misleading advertisement relating to any claim, directly or indirectly, of quality of coaching or the facilities offered therein or the result procured by such coaching centre or the student who attended such class," it said.

The tutors or any other person hired by such centres should not have been convicted of any offence involving moral turpitude. An institute will not be registered unless it has a counselling system as per the requirement of these guidelines.

The coaching centres should also have a website with updated details of the qualification of tutors, courses/curriculum, duration of completion, hostel facilities, and the fees being charged.

"They (centres) should establish a mechanism for immediate intervention to provide targeted and sustained assistance to students in distress and stressful situations," it said adding the competent authority should take steps to ensure that a counselling system is developed by such centres.

"Information about the names of psychologists, counsellors and the time they render services may be given to all students and parents. Trained counsellors could be appointed in the coaching centre to facilitate effective guidance and counselling for students and parents," it said.

The centres will also have to refund the remaining fees and hostel charges, if any, if a student leaves the course midway. 

The guidelines have suggested coaching centres be penalised Rs 25,000 for first offence, Rs one lakh for second offence and revocation of registration for subsequent offence for charging exorbitant fees that cause undue stress leading to student suicide or for other malpractices.