Kota – Part 3 – Life in Kota from a Student Perspective

Photo - Pradeep Gaur (Mint). Read Article Here

I was in Kota for two days. After a training session with an institute on the first day, I had the evening and the whole next day free. So I decided to walk around the streets of Kota. I wanted to understand how this city created an ambience for Engineering Education.

The plan was to visit all the headquarters of the top coaching institutes in Kota, speak to a few students and just observe the student lifestyle in this factory for Indian engineers. I tried speaking to as many students as possible. It seemed like shopkeepers and local businesses also supported this culture and did everything to let the students focus on their learning. These were some the things I noticed and some of the insights I recorded, after exploring the city for over five hours:-

Kota - The Hub of the Indian Coaching Institute Empire – Part 1

A May 12^th, 2013 Business Today article titled, ‘The Dream Factories’ written by Sarika Malhotra mentioned the following points about students in Kota, India. Read here

‘Singh's friend is among more than one lakh students who arrive in Kota, the mecca of IIT coaching, every year. Girls comprise nearly a fifth of the students.

This year about 1.25 lakh students are likely to join Kota-based institutes, according to estimates by coaching centres. Besides, there are the so-called "droppers", who stay on for repeat attempts by hopping from one institute to another. Most students fail to make it to the IITs as seats are limited and competition intense. That still hasn't dampened the aspirations of thousands of others.’

Conversations with a former student