CHENNAI: The abolition of the Common Entrance Test for professional undergraduate admissions may have hurt their lifeline badly, but coaching centres are already thinking of other means to remain in business.

One of the main recommendations of the M. Ananthakrishnan committee, formed by the State Government to explore modalities of abolishing the CET, was that it would end fleecing of students by the coaching centres and provide a level playing ground for rural students, who could not afford their fees.

"The CET has been the cause of a large money-spinning racket. Its abolition will inspire other States to end this too," Mr. Ananthakrishnan told The Hindu .

Coaching industry sources say Chennai alone has over 1,500 coaching centres for various competitive examinations, and at least 60 per cent of them are unregistered, functioning out of makeshift premises.

Fee

The fee varies between Rs. 2,000 for a two-month programme and Rs. 7,000 for a six-month session.

One of the largest coaching centres, the Indian Institute of Professional Education, had around 15,000 students from all over the State on its rolls every year in its 12 Chennai branches and 50 district centres.

"The CET abolition will affect our business but we are diversifying into other activities such as publication of guides for the Plus Two board examinations. Ours is not a seasonal business as we coach the students for the entire year," says V.P. Ramamurthy, director of the institute.

Other side

The better organised players such as AIMS and Aspire Learning Company are better equipped to cope.

"We offer inclusive programmes for all competitive examinations, which run for the whole year and not just the year-end. Last year, with all the confusion over CET, our AIEEE enrolment doubled. We have also diversified into foundation courses," says director Gita Prabhu of AIMS.

The Centre coached around 1,100 students in Chennai alone last year for a fee of Rs 5,000.

"The CET abolition will not hurt us too badly for we are more into building mathematics and science competencies among students to help them with all competitive examinations," says N Madhumati, marketing director of Aspire Learning Company.

Left in the lurch

Not so lucky is V. Narasimhan, a city college lecturer who, with three other lecturers, was running a one-room coaching class in his Nungambakkam home for the past five years.

He had been charging Rs. 400 each for Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics and Biology, for a four-week crash course.

"We will now have to shift to spoken English classes, for none of us has experience in handling IIT JEE, AIEEE, Civil Services and UPSC aspirants," he says.

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