Coaching Ad Cranks Up Undue Pressure To Succeed On Students As Young As Class 5

A FIITJEE coaching advertisement was emblazoned on the front page of a prominent newspaper today, asking students, "What will you lose if you do not study at FIITJEE?" The question, however, was not directed to high school students, it was pitched to kids studying in class five onwards. The ad then goes on to answer its question with a daunting-looking list of the various opportunities that the youth will miss out on if they do not enroll with them.

FIITJEE is an engineering launchpad that was started in 1992 in Delhi and has now spread its arms into several cities, including as far as in Gulf countries. It is a notable player in India's growing coaching culture that primes students for lucrative jobs in science and management, the hub for which has found a steady centre in Kota.

While the notoriously toxic setups within these coaching institutions is another longer matter, the way they are advertised gives us a glimpse of the thought process that runs them. A snippet of the ad in question was shared by a Twitter user.

Should students as young as ten or 11 be made to feel undue pressures of future success? Does such marketing not encourage parents to impose mercenary ambitions on their children? Are these coaching centres, with their monotoned and rather narcissistic definitions of success, not appropriating the extent of the concept?

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Are students really losing anything by not studying at this prominent coaching centre, or many others like it? The question should be, what will they lose by studying at them under impressions that the route they are taking is the only one to success? Will they not lose out on divergent, independent and critical thinking? Or the courage to pursue any other dreams they may want to chase?

Will they not lose out on the freedom to think what success means to them? That's a lot to lose out on, isn't it?

This toxicity similarly reared its head not too long ago when an online platform for coding aimed its courses at children as young as six. More on that here.

There is essentially nothing wrong with skill development at a young age; reading, writing, everything considered typically basic, are all part of the same family. So one may question, what's the harm in streamlining early learning to the demands of today? In the digital era that prizes tech knowledge, why should children not arm themselves with the tools they will need?

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But prepping a child for complex concepts is radically different from teaching them how to use a pencil with which they can trace new imaginations. Do we see nothing seriously corrupt about the hustle culture of always working with the intention of competition piercing so deep that it has reached schoolgoing children?

FIITJEE coaching ad makes a rather limited measure of what success means. Does this culture stand to snuff out authentic aspirations?

How many parents encourage these coaching enrollments with honest convictions and understanding about the field, and not because the neighbour's kid goes for coaching too? Will herding children into these classes, just to take a slice of the pie going around the circle, truly shape resourceful individuals for the future who like and believe in what they do?

Specialised courses that demand them to focus on a deadened one-way road may block out any colourful aspirations children have. That is what they will lose out on. Do we want that? Can we afford that?

Views expressed are the author's own. 

Image shared by Abhijeet Gaur / Twitter