Covid-19: Preparing for competitive exams

The coaching industry in India plays a pivotal role, as it contributes significant revenue to the education sector. Coaching industry constitutes training institutes that are involved in coaching students from K-12 by supplementing their formal education as well as those who are preparing for various competitive exams including JEE, NEET, CET, CA exams. However, with the outbreak of Covid-19, a large number of training institutes across India have come to an operational standstill, affecting the learning process of students.

Training institutes that are dependent on offline classrooms have been adversely affected. The impact is felt more across exam prep and government job prep sectors, as students predominantly look at classroom learning which facilitates peer learning.

The training institutes nation-wide are looking at various options to automate their operations by conducting classes online. However, majority of the institutes are reluctant mainly because many students and teachers are more comfortable with traditional method of classroom teaching. Additionally, the issue of internet connectivity combined with inaccessibility to gadgets to access online classes are also some of the pressing concerns for adopting online coaching.

In the era of technology and digitisation, there is a strong need to embrace change and adapt to the changing business dynamics in the online world.

To ensure continuity in learning, students can prepare for competitive exams by enrolling for online sessions. However, the search process has to be scientific and adequate research has to be undertaken before they identify the right training institute. This is important since the students may not have an understanding regarding the credibility of the various online institutes, unlike the local training institutes in their own city. The research can be done by:

Checking the reputation of the online institutes on social media platforms. This will help to ensure the credibility of the institute.

Interact with the alumni who have written competitive exams to gain necessary insights and techniques that need to be adopted to prepare for the exams beyond the regular sessions.

Communicate and interact with mentors, successful candidates and seek their guidance.

Join social groups for peer learning, that can help in interactive learning.

Some of the large social media groups have follower base to the tune of millions which can facilitate learning.

Students, who are comfortable in their own mother-tongue or regional language, should adopt blended-learning approach, which will include a combination of English as well as regional language.

The search process can help establish some of the local needs to benefit effectively from the coaching programmes from institutes which can offer flexibility through language modes.

The most important thing to remember is: Practice is key to success.

While the overall educational sector is facing multiple challenges to engage students, it has also opened doors to a plethora of opportunities, allowing educators to rethink the traditional classroom set-up of teaching. It is important that even large and established educational institutions and companies in the space of enabling digitisation and automisation should take it as their responsibility, to offer support to local training institutes in Tier 2 and 3 cities, which will be highly beneficial to students to ensure that they continue learning.

(The author is CEO and Founder of an EdTech company)