How the cannibals came for Kota’s coaching giants

While Kota’s coaching centres lost students, their branches in cities such as Patna, New Delhi, Latur, Mumbai, Rajkot, Baroda, Sikar and Lucknow gained, several faculty members said. Until last year, students in these cities would migrate to Kota to prepare for competitive examinations at its famed tuition classes.

“The (student count at) centres in New Delhi grew from 9,000 last year to 20,000 this year. The management has a target of crossing 30,000 in the coming year, a threefold increase,” said a faculty member at the New Delhi branch of Allen Career Institute, the biggest coaching centre in Kota. He said enrolments have grown in smaller cities as well, with the Patna branch adding 8,000 students this year, an impressive number considering it had opened only in 2021. Allen’s coaching centres in tier-three cities like Sikar in Rajasthan are also attracting a good stream of students from nearby towns and villages, the teacher said on condition of anonymity.

While the new centres offer pay hikes to attract and retain teachers, the Kota hub is grappling with salary cuts and depleting students.

Queries sent to test preparation companies like Aakash, Allen, Unacademy and PhysicsWallah remained unanswered.

Rise in enrolments

Meanwhile, Allen’s Kota rival Unacademy has seen enrolments rise in Maharashtra’s Latur, a city that used to send many students to Kota every year. “We have crossed 1,800 this year, crossing the enrolment target of about 1,500,” an Unacademy executive said on the condition of anonymity. Meanwhile, Unacademy in Kota saw enrolments drop from 10,000 in 2023 to 7,000 in 2024, Mint earlier reported.

In fact, Unacademy, which has four branches in Patna, gave a 10% hike in April to some of its top performing teachers. “Had the issue around NEET not been developed, we would have got more students,” a faculty member said. The teacher added that there were teachers who moved in from Kota at a lower salary.

Allegations of irregularities cropped up after the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET-UG) in May which tested 2.4 million students for admission to medical colleges. After several protests and arrests over steep marks and leaked question papers, the case landed in the Supreme Court.

The flight of students to smaller centres come at a time of pay cuts at Unacademy’s faculty, while teachers at Allen and its unit Reliable have seen their fixed pay reduced by 20-40%. Teachers from rival PhysicsWallah have been transferred out of Kota as well to maintain the costs.

While earlier students who could not clear NEET or secure a desired seat would move to Kota for another year of preparations, coaching centres don’t expect the same trend this year.

Kota story

Kota regrouped after two years of the pandemic, as thousands of students arrived for tuitions and lodging. The record enrolments led to a war for faculty and expansion to other centres.

Coaching institutes that did not have their base in Kota also stand to gain. “There has been a 20% increase in students this year who have registered for their engineering and medical entrance tests with us,” said the founder of a local coaching centre which started in Gujarat’s Vadodara about 20 years ago.

“When the institutes from Kota opened their centres a couple of years ago in Vadodara, they offered hefty discounts of more than 50%. A bubble was created, and now their main centre is hurting,” the founder added.

Families prefer to have their children attend coaching classes closer home, said Mujtaba Wani, a principal at GSV Ventures, which has invested in edtechs including PhysicsWallah and Lead. “Particularly given the stress of test prep and the tragedies that have occurred in Kota, many would opt to have their kids study locally or close by if that is a suitable option. 

Kota’s reputation as a coaching hub darkened in the recent past after reports of several students taking their life over exam-related stress.

Wani said edtechs are opening physical centres all over the country. “I believe this will actually boost the revenues of test prep companies because the opportunity to have dozens, if not hundreds, of locations across India is a much bigger revenue pool that Kota could ever be.”