Private NEET coaching centres boom in Madurai

Realising that NEET is the only way to secure an MBBS berth, an array of coaching centres have mushroomed in the city of late. While there are a handful of reputed NEET coaching centres in the city that are part of a chain of centres, S Shivaraj branch manager of 'Seekers' said that there could be close to (or even over) 100 smaller NEET coaching centres in the city.
"There are at least six in Anna Nagar 80 Feet Road. Many tuition centres are converting into NEET coaching centres," he said. Enrolment in these institutes and coaching centres have gone up by at least twice the admissions last year and has already tripled for NEET 2019 as many Plus-One students have already started training.
Coaching is offered in a variety of packages to suit the requirements of the students and the pockets of the parents. Full time, weekday, weekend classes for current state board students, NEET along with CBSE at schools and crash courses are among predominant business models in NEET coaching. Interestingly a majority of those joining coaching classes are state board students.
Standalone NEET coaching centres charge up to Rs1.5 lakh a year and Rs3 lakh for a two-year course. This could be paid in three to six easy monthly instalments. Some CBSE schools are charging Rs30,000 to Rs 1lakh a year in addition to the regular fees for NEET coaching. It is learnt that they teach CBSE the NEET way as the syllabus is the same.
Of the 200 MBBS aspirants taking up the weekdays and weekend coaching in a leading institute in the city, around 180 are from state board syllabus. "Some of them attend the weekly three to four day classes for three hours in the evening, while the rest come for weekend classes," said the institute’s regional manager for Madurai and Trichy R Rajaguru.
On the other hand, enrolment for a one month NEET crash course that will begin immediately after the Plus-Two board exams is overwhelming. "It has crossed 450. We expect it to cross 1,000. More than 80% of those who enrolled in the crash course are from state board syllabus," Rajaguru added.
More coaching centres are likely to mushroom to offer such crash course for those who have been focused on the board exams. In the recent days students are receiving SMS offering NEET coaching for Rs10,000.
Meanwhile, the CBSE has informed the Supreme Court that only one set of question paper would be set for students taking the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) for admission in MBBS and BDS courses from this year.
The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) told a bench comprising Justices Arun Mishra and F A Nazeer that earlier students were allowed to take NEET in 10 languages including Hindi and English.
The apex court had earlier turned as "illogical" the practice of setting different sets of question papers in different languages and said that it would be "very difficult" to evaluate the competence of students when their questions are different.