Tirupati: Coaching centres face pandemic blues

Tirupati: The Covid-19 pandemic pushed various education and career coaching centres into a state of uncertainty. This particular sector has been continuously flourishing in the recent past with many aspirants relying on coaching centres to fulfil their dreams. Every year after the examinations are over by around April, new batch of students will make a search for good and reputed institutes to join for training classes.

This year, the sector has been facing an unprecedented grim situation. Since March 2020, the Covid-19 induced lockdown has made these centres to down their shutters and even during unlock 2.0 the government has been continuing restriction to educational institutes from allowing students into their campuses.

An educational hub with several universities and reputed educational institutes, Tirupati city has more than 25 coaching centres of different types. The Covid-19 pandemic made several such centres to close indefinitely with uncertainty about their near future. These centres are normally located in busy areas to attract students and to be at the centre of attraction where they need to pay huge rents. Now, the organisers are not in a position to pay the rents.

N Sridhar, director of Career Launcher, Tirupati, told The Hans India that the emerging situation is not at all encouraging and the new admissions were hit by almost 70 per cent. They give coaching to CAT aspirants along with GRE, TOEFEL, IELTS and bank job examinations. With the prevailing situation in the country and abroad, particularly in USA, the students and parents are postponing their abroad plans by one year.

However, they have been organising classes, webinars, examinations and quiz programmes to their students through online mode using Zoom app. They have been taking this opportunity to motivate them with regular follow-ups. "We are getting 90 per cent attendance for our online classes. If students have a strong urge towards their career, they will greatly benefit with online classes. But, the dull students and those having lack of interest will have no use with online classes," he opined.

The personal monitoring in offline classes may be impossible for the online classes. Since the government has not cancelled any exams but only delayed the academic year, students must be prepared for even eligibility tests and other examinations. After all they get a career chance only once, which has to be grabbed with hard work only, Sridhar said.