Mumbai: Resident doctors write to Education Minister protesting exorbitant charges for crash courses

Taking advantage of the Supreme Court’s verdict to have a single test for medical admissions, private coaching centres have started offering crash courses on national eligibility-cum-entrance test (NEET), charging exorbitant charges.

Students will appear for phase II of NEET on July 24. “Our advice to students would be to forget about protest and appear for the test,” Director of Medical Education and Research Dr. Pravin Shingare told The Hindu .

The apex court ruling has caused a lot of confusion among students and parents. But, coaching centres have whiffed an opportunity. For instance, Aakash, a coaching institute, is offering a crash course from May 16 to July 22, at a price of Rs. 40,000.

Other centres such as Mahesh Tutorials and Arihant Tutorials have come up with an 11+12+NEET package for a princely sum of Rs 2 lakh and Rs. 1.5 lakh, which is double the fees they charge for their regular Class XI and XII programme.

Wisdom Academy, which has centres in Borivali and Andheri, charges Rs. 1 lakh for a NEET crash course and Rs. 3.5 lakh for 11+12+NEET training.

“We coach students in small groups. As NEET is based on the CBSE syllabus, it needs faculty members with expertise, and thus the huge fees,” Prashant Ganger, director, Wisdom Academy, said.

Meanwhile, the Central Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (C-MARD) has written to State Education Minister Vinod Tawde, requesting him to put a cap on the fees charged by the coaching centres. “The coaching centres have come up with crash courses within no time asking the parents to pay huge fees,” said Sagar Mundada, president, C-MARD. Dr. Shingare, however, refused to comment on the private coaching centres.