The Common University Entrance Test (CUET) undergraduate, has more reasons than one, to remain in focus as students are eagerly waiting for their results to be announced and coaching institutes are poised to prove their mettle with their success rate. Interestingly, the coaching industry is optimistic that in the future CUET may turn out to be yet another area of revenue. “Currently, demand for CUET preparation may be at its kindergarten stage, but in no time we will see it giving competition to even the likes of JEE and NEET which contribute significantly to the Indian test-prep market,” Karan Mehta, chief product and growth officer, Toprankers, told FE Education Online.
CUET has already become the second biggest entrance exam in the country with nearly 16.85 lakh students registering for the exam this year surpassing JEE-Mains average registration of around nine lakh students.
A simple search on the Internet shows over a dozen coaching institutes have tapped on the opportunity to provide CUET preparation including ed-tech major Unacademy. Career platform Toprankers claims to make three to four percent of its total revenue at the current stage which ranges between Rs three core to Rs 20 crore from a batch size of 2,000 students. “We expect to increase our revenue by eight percent by the end of this financial year and have already achieved one-third of targeted student strength in the first quarter itself” Mehta said. Toprankers decided to launch a separate vertical for CUET preparation under its brand Supergrad to utilise the opportunity.
Interestingly, the CUET test preparation market stands at around 30% of the JEE or NEET preparation industry, which leaves a lot of scope for the segment to grow. However, experts have their own doubts about its impact on the quality of education and accessibility. “It is only fair to give everybody an opportunity on a level playing field through CUET. At the same time, it is important to ensure that the value of grade 12th board exams is not diluted and the bourgeoning culture of coaching institutes and dummy schools does not take over,” Neeta Bali, director, Seth Anandram Jaipuria Group of Schools, said.
Meanwhile, many students feel that CUET coaching is not required if one prepares well for Board exams. “I opted for CUET coaching because there was a lot of confusion in the first year when the exam was introduced. My domain subjects were strong but I required assistance in the General Aptitude Test,” Shashank Jain a 19 year old student, explained.
Other students believe that CUET preparation is necessary as the syllabus for the competitive exam includes topics which are not taught in grade – 11th and 12th. “For subjects such as Economics, Business Studies, Accountancy, particularly General Aptitude Test and Languages additional coaching is important,” Hadi Hasan a 18 year old student, said. Furthermore, the difference between the state and central board curriculum also calls for the need for CUET coaching, another student Ashraf Mehdi (17) said.