Hyderabad:
As much as 40 per cent of students who crack the IIT entrance exam every year come from Andhra Pradesh.
The craze for IIT has risen so much in the state that it has become a status symbol for parents to make their boy or girl prepare and crack the entrance exam.
However, it means business for some who in the name of IIT coaching manage to run a chain of coaching centres, flouting norms of not just building but also teaching.
Residential Junior College, like most others in Andhra Pradesh, offers coaching for the IIT entrance exam. The students stay on from seven in the morning till seven in the evening or longer, with a half-hour lunch break. As per rule number 18 of the education department, a college should have only six hours of teaching.
(Watch)",After 7 pm, we stay to clear doubts and that can be for however long,", says Charath, a student.
Another college in Hyderabad flouts rule number four of the education department, which says no cinema hall or liquor outlet should be within 100 yards of a college. Apart from this, rule number seven is violated too because there is no campus and rule number eight flouted because there is no fire safety. A narrow staircase is the only in and out of building. Yet, the college is easily the biggest name in intermediate education in the city.
The education minister admitted to NDTV that the thousands of unrecognised colleges couldn't be doing thriving business without the connivance of his department.
",The RIO is also partly responsible for not taking notice of this. We will take action against the officers in-charge. We will definitely take action against unauthorised colleges,", said Chenga Reddy, Higher Education Minister.
Educationists point out that there are more than 8000 unrecognised private junior colleges in Andhra Pradesh. Many have come up in the last three years. They cash-in on the anxiety of students and parents to crack the IIT exam.
What most parents fail to check is whether there is competent faculty to match the college's claim and advertisements, and whether the college is legal and recognised by the government.