‘Nearly 60% parents spend Rs 8,000 per month on coaching for 2 children’

The Bose family began tightening their budget last year when their 16-year-old daughter Brinda declared she would take the IIT entrance examination. The forbidding cost of preparatory classes for AIEEE and IIT-JEE examinations, which averages to about Rs one-and-a-half lakh for two years at the best known institutes such as Akash, Oasis and Brilliant, force parents to cut household expenses and save every paisa.

Anand Verma shells out Rs 200 per class for his son, studying in class IX, for Mathematics tuitions in a local tutorial centre. For English and Science, the tutor charges Rs 150 per class.

Geeta Sinha, who has an MA degree, runs tuition classes for children in I P Extension. She charges anything between Rs 2000 to 2500 per month to coach students from classes III to VIII in all subjects.

Coaching centres for specialised examinations apart, even regular tuitions for students in the lower classes constitute a heavy expense for families.

The results of a study released by ASSOCHAM shows that parents in urban centres like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Madras, Kolkata, Chennai, Pune, Dehradun, Jaipur, Udaipur and Ajmer are spending upto 33 per cent of their income on tuitions.

Mathematics seems to be the most common subject for tuitions, with physics and chemistry coming a close second. English gets the third place.

“Maths, chemistry and physics tutors can earn a five-figure monthly income from tutoring,” said ASSOCHAM Secretary General,

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