Kota, in Rajasthan, is one of those rare places named after a loser. When Jait Singh of Bundi slew the Bhil chieftain Kotya and captured Akelgarh in 1264, he was so impressed by Kotya’s bravery that he named his newly conquered principality Kotah after him. Ironical, as today thousands throng to this small town, some 240 km south of Jaipur, to win at a more refined version of combat—the entrance examination to top engineering colleges in India.
Situated on the banks of the Chambal River (yes, the same one that passes through ravines once lorded over by dacoits like Paan Singh Tomar and Phoolan Devi), Kota was known more for its saris and a fine-grained variety of limestone. But that changed when an engineer at JK Synthetics, VK Bansal, took up teaching after being diagnosed with muscular dystrophy, a hereditary muscle disease for which there is no cure. He set up Bansal Classes to coach students for entrance tests. By the late 1990s, when Bansal’s students began to regularly figure in the top 100 of the IIT entrance test ranks, Kota became the place to go for those seeking a ticket to the top colleges and a plum job.
When other successful coaching institutes mushroomed (set up mostly by those who branched off from Bansal Classes), Kota changed from a sleepy town to one in which thousands of sleepless students prepared day and night for the tests. The fact that these students spend lakhs of rupees each on tuition and lodging allowed both the coaching centres and the residents of Kota to prosper. And when success comes, so does more competition.
Enter the Koreans
Etoos Academy, backed by the $104-billion SK Group (among South Korea’s top four conglomerates) and one of South Korea’s leading coaching institutes, has set up shop in Kota. Entrance tests are as critical in South Korea as they are in India, if not more. There, more than 80 percent of high-school students move on to higher-level education. So, doing well in the college entrance exams—also known as the College Scholastic Ability Test—is a prerequisite to getting into a prestigious college. Not that different from India, where every year more than 4,50,000 students take the IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) entrance exam and only 3 percent of them are successful.
A New Method
“It started to seem like this coaching [centre] is not confident of itself, and that I’ll be left in the lurch as all other coaching [centres] would have completed their admissions,” says Vikram Chauhan, a class 11 student in Kota who is with Career Point now. What Jin thought would draw students in was actually turning them away.
(This story appears in the 08 June, 2012 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)
No teacher or coaching institute has ever produced a genius. Only one who bases himself on intuition and hardwork becomes a genius.
on Jan 11, 2013Amazingly written. For someone who has gone through the phase of Kota and experienced it all i can tell you seem to have narrated it well. This also highlights how big this industry is and how its attracting more and more people into this field. Too bad our Government doesnt realise this and go about correctional reforms so that these practices (however profitable and innovative) they maybe would not really be required, in an ideal situation.
on Aug 1, 2012Very interesting! I recently witnessed hundreds of students going from far flung Assam and its neighbouring areas- a north eastern state in India. \'Kota\' is getting so popular among students and their parents community that they literally pray God to get an opportunity to be there and get trained...Amazing!
on Jun 18, 2012You are right. And for this reason some of the older coachings have entrance tests to screen students! So students go through one test to get into the coaching, which will then prepare them for the final IITJEE test. Or whatever form the new IIT entrance exam will take.
on Jun 29, 2012Kota was pegged to be the Industrial capital of Rajasthan but most industries that were set up had to shut down or ran into losses due to lack of political will and vision (as in the rest of the state). This forced some residents to look at alternative avenues and given many of them were engineers, and engineering is by far the most popular career choice amongst India\'s middle classes, coaching for engineering aspirants probably hit the jackpot. Clearly Kota is no metropolitan city, however am not sure It\'s a small town either. Its the third largest city in Rajasthan (after Jaipur and Jodhpur) with a population of over a million people. Given its faster growth trajectory, it might actually overtake Jodhpur as the second largest city in the state in the next 5-10 years. Its a major railroad junction, has a huge cantonment, thermal, atomic and hydro power projects and a relatively cosmopolitan population. Its also the divisonal headquarters for the region with command over many surrounding districts. Unlike Rajasthan more popular though clearly smaller cities (Udaipur and Jaisalmer for example) its largely off the tourist map. Wondering if that\'s the reason for the \'small town\' perception (unless of course we\'d like to consider all urban centres other than the top 4/6/8 metros as small towns). Disclaimer: I\'m not a resident of Kota but have visited the city on quite a few occassions, and have since the first visit always carried the impression of Kota being a decent sized city.
on Jun 12, 2012I Love this article which focuses on the Education sector and how the coaching business is making positive news in India. Expecting more such articles on Education and Vocational Training in India
on Jun 8, 2012well written Anirvan, globalization is getting there in every field slowly
on Jun 8, 2012come on Mr. Intekhab, using \'differently abled\' for disabled was understood but there is no harm using dacoits for outlaws. How much respect do you expect for them? Forbes need not be so politically correct. Anirvan it is a good informative article.
on Jun 7, 2012I like the article but c\'mon Anirvan, rather than using the word dacoit you could have used outlaws. *No personal affection to any of them but just that it didn\'t sound \"Forbes\". Best, Intekhab
on Jun 7, 2012Firstly, thanks for reading and commenting here. True that the word \'outlaw\' could have been used, but ultimately they were dacoits. They chose that path. Maybe for some of them it came about because of social injustice, but ultimately they were feared because they were armed and ready to kill in order to loot. So calling them \'dacoits\' is apt.
on Jun 8, 2012Great! You had to justify that? Lol :) And how un-parliamentary is it to call 'the real dacoits' as dacoits? You know who am talking about, right? Our very own member of parliaments who are not armed with guns but are surely armed with the arsenal enough to 'loot' and kill a nation. Long live democracy! But thanks for replying
on Jun 12, 2012