Chandigarh: Despite the CBSE reiterating its rules against dummy schooling and the Chandigarh administration keeping a proposal to regulate private coaching institutes pending for more than a year, this year’s Re-NEET results suggest little has changed on the ground.Coaching institutes in Chandigarh have once again celebrated successful ‘classroom’ students who remain officially enrolled in schools in far-off towns such as Gurdaspur, Barnala and other parts of Punjab, highlighting the continued prevalence of the dummy schooling model.The latest reminder came through a communication received on July 21 by Chandigarh resident Gaurav Bansal, who has been raising concerns with the ministry of education, CBSE and other authorities over dummy schooling and the growing dependence on coaching institutes.
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Rather than announcing fresh measures, the reply reiterated existing CBSE Affiliation and Examination Bye-laws. It stated that students must maintain 75% attendance, schools cannot sponsor candidates who do not meet attendance requirements, and affiliated schools are prohibited from running coaching classes. Violations can attract action, including withdrawal of affiliation. The communication also noted that the ministry of education has constituted a high-level committee to examine issues relating to dummy schooling and coaching institutes.Bansal said the response merely restated rules that already exist. “The issue has never been the absence of rules. CBSE has once again reiterated what is already there in its bye-laws. The question is why the same dummy schooling model continues openly every year despite repeated complaints,” he said.This year’s admission season appears to reinforce those concerns. Coaching institutes across the city have once again publicised successful NEET candidates enrolled in schools outside Chandigarh. Similar trends have been visible after both NEET and JEE results in recent years, with institutes projecting students enrolled in distant schools as their classroom achievers.A reality check by TOI found weekday classroom coaching continuing uninterrupted. Calls made to several coaching institutes Monday and Tuesday found morning batches running during school hours, with representatives readily sharing schedules. This is despite repeated advisories from the Chandigarh education department asking institutes not to conduct classes during school timings.A senior education department official said enforcement alone may not solve the problem. “It is not easy to crack down on coaching institutes because many parents themselves prefer this arrangement. Their priority is success in competitive examinations. For a large section of society, school education has unfortunately become secondary to NEET or JEE preparation,” the official said.Last year, the Chandigarh administration announced that it would examine extending the Haryana Registration and Regulation of Private Coaching Institutes Act, 2024, to the UT. The law mandates registration of coaching institutes, inspections, disclosure norms, grievance redressal and penalties for violations. However, more than a year later, no such framework has been notified in Chandigarh.For many parents, the pressure to opt for dummy schooling has become difficult to resist. “We are made to feel that if a child doesn’t join coaching, nothing can happen. Every year we see only the faces of top rankers. Nobody asks what happened to the thousands who followed the same route but did not qualify,” said Seema Garg, whose son attended a dummy school in Punjab while preparing for an entrance examination.Gagandeep Kaur, a teacher at a private school in Mohali, said the race for competitive exams has altered the purpose of schooling. “For many children, life has become one routine — coaching, home, self-study and repeat. Schools are expected to develop communication skills, teamwork, leadership, sportsmanship and emotional growth. Those aspects are steadily disappearing because everything revolves around one examination,” she said.Arvind, a Chandigarh-based biology educator, said the admission system itself fuels the trend. “As long as admission depends almost entirely on a single examination, coaching will remain dominant. The selection process needs to evolve by giving greater weight to school performance and broader assessment parameters so that school education regains its importance,” he said.For yet another admission season, the debate remains unresolved. While CBSE has reiterated its rules, Chandigarh is still to notify a law regulating coaching institutes, and the parallel coaching-dummy schooling ecosystem continues to thrive as the city strengthens its position as a major coaching hub for students from neighbouring states.
