After Prime Minister Modi’s Independence Day speech mentioned that the government would provide free coaching for competitive examinations to students, Maharashtra’s Higher Education Department has constituted a committee to form a policy to expand the state’s existing offline UPSC coaching service to 5,000 students online.
The state currently provides UPSC training at its six Pre-IAS training centres in Amravati, Kolhapur, Mumbai, Nashik, Nagpur and Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar.
A circular issued by Shailendra Deolankar, Director of Higher Education, on August 19 announced the formation of a six-member committee to conduct a detailed study and submit a report on providing quality online training to needy aspirants. The committee will be headed by the Director of State Institute for Administrative Careers (SIAC).
Deolankar told The Indian Express, “The pre-IAS centres are currently available to students who get selected through the entrance test. The committee will examine how we can make the same lectures available to approximately 1,000 students online at every centre. Why should it be restricted to just the few hundred students at these offline centres when technology is now available?”
The committee will work towards determining the feasibility and outline of implementing free online training programmes, suggest measures for developing the technology, digital infrastructure and state-wide network of expert professors required for the online training, formulating a policy regarding the format of online training, shared schedules and availability of study material as per the changing curriculum of the administrative services, preparing guidelines for the selection process of eligible students and for continuous evaluation of their progress.
The six centres under SIAC currently provide free training, hostel facilities and a monthly stipend to selected students. Admissions to the centres happen through a common entrance test.
On Independence Day, PM Modi had said from the Red Fort, “Coaching classes burden the poor and the middle class. We will provide free online coaching for various exams. Every parent feels that if they do not send their child to a coaching class, they are not a prestigious family.”
