My neighbour’s son had passed the IIT JEE exam. There was a buzz in the house. Relatives came to

congratulate him. The family’s joy was palpable. That one’s success had brought misery to many children in the neighbourhood. Those who hadn’t passed were all walking around with downcast faces. Some mothers sided with the failed children, saying, “The boy didn’t reach IIT just like that. He’d been taking coaching for three years,” they argued. The mention of coaching sparked a debate: “Is it really impossible to pass an engineering exam without coaching?” There are many aspects to this debate.

Sunil Saraswat, an account manager at a private company, says that if coaching institutes weren’t effective, their numbers wouldn’t be growing so rapidly today. Coaching institutes have been operating

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