He came, He saw, He conquered! And that’s what seems to be the current situation in Kota, Rajasthan, which is known to be the coaching hub of the country. With the entry of ed-tech firms, traditional coaching centres are believed to be reeling under pressure. Just to give a perspective, most ed-tech platforms such as Unacademy, Byju’s, and Physicawalla among others have entered the city resulting in a cut-throat competition. “It’s not a healthy competition at all, all these ed-techs have created a tug-of-war for teachers and students which ultimately is hampering the results,” Ashish Bansal, CEO, Bansal Learning, Kota, said. He added that the ed-tech bubble is soon going to burst after next year’s results are out.
As traditional coaching institutes in Kota try to remain relevant with the help of their massive network earned through decades-old reputation, the online majors have carved a niche for themselves by offering cheaper packages, with better tech infrastructure powered by institutional funding. “There is no doubt that ed-techs have facilitated learning with the help of their tech-enabled classrooms but offline education has an importance of its own. These ed-techs are more focused on getting large numbers of students than delivering results,” Amarnath Anand, co-founder, director, Nucleus Education, Kota, said. However, he added that eventually both the players will coexist in the market and produce a balanced result.
Fees is an important aspect of this rat race which boasts of producing engineers and doctors in no time. Ed-tech platform Physicawalla, which opened its offline centre in Kota in June, charges an average price of Rs 25,960 annually for its one year programme from students enrolled between 9-10th standard, Uday Ranawat, from the telecom department told FE Education Online. With a current 10% discount, this price is further reduced to around Rs 23,000, he added. For the two year programme for classes 11-12, the platform charges an average price of Rs 1,00,520. The company claimed that in its first year of operations, within two months over 40,000 students enrolled with the platform. Meanwhile, Allen’s offline centre charges an average fee of Rs 1.5 lakh, according to its telecom department. For NEET coaching the institute charges a fee of Rs 1. 25 lakh for students in 11th grade, 1.28 lakh – 12th grade, and 1.36 lakh for students who have passed 12th grade. This flux in the amount is not just limited to fees of students but also the salaries of teachers. Industry experts say ed-techs are able to lure educators with hefty salaries as they are institutionally funded.
Yet another issue that the city faces is poaching of educators. Perhaps a reason why the city is also known as the Kota Factory. Recently, ed-tech major Unacademy, which opened its offline institute in Kota in mid-June hired 30-40 educators from Allen Career Institute, an old player in the market. It has led to a full blown rivalry between the ed-tech companies and incumbent coaching classes, as per industry experts. Virtual threats and the risk of attack, appears to be very much a part of this rivalry.
According to media reports, Unacademy had alleged that their employees were targeted by the old players after its entry in Kota. Reports said, Brajesh Maheshwari, one of the founders of Allen, in a video shared internally with educators warned those who left his institute that they would be blacklisted. In another YouTube video that went viral a few years ago, the oldest of the Maheshwari brothers, Rajesh reportedly claimed to be the ‘don’ of the coaching industry. Allen refused to comment on the allegation.
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