A 16-year-old in Kota wakes up at 5 AM.
School? On paper only.
Real life? 14 hours inside a coaching centre.
This is the machine the Indian government is finally trying to break.
A nine-member panel led by Higher Education Secretary Vineet Joshi has handed in a draft that could rewire how India prepares for JEE, NEET and CUET.
The verdict is blunt.
You can't fix coaching addiction just by raiding institutes or banning flashy ads.
The disease is deeper.
Here's the dirty secret of India's exam economy.
Kids enroll in a school… and never show up.
Attendance is faked. Boards are an afterthought.
Life is one thing only — the entrance exam.
Biometric attendance would end that overnight.
If it actually gets enforced.
India's coaching industry isn't a side hustle.
It's a ~$7 billion beast, projected to nearly double by 2030.
Kota alone runs on it. So do Hyderabad, Delhi, Patna.
And the human cost?
👉 127 students died by suicide in Kota between 2015 and 2024.
👉 2023 alone: a record 32 deaths.
👉 2024 saw a 38% dip after stricter rules — proof that regulation actually moves the needle.
Notice what the panel is really saying.
The villain isn't just coaching centres.
It's the exam design itself.
When JEE and NEET drift miles away from NCERT textbooks, coaching becomes oxygen.
When board marks lose credibility, parents panic.
When panic meets a ₹58,000 crore industry — you get Kota.
Fix the exam, and you starve the machine.
The report lands with the government in a couple of weeks.
If it becomes law, India could see its first real attempt to put schools back at the centre of childhood.
Not a coaching cubicle.
Not a mock test at midnight.
Not a 14-hour day at age 15.
Just school. The way it was supposed to be.
That's all for now!
