A video circulating on social media claims that the Ministry of Education has issued guidelines stating that students under 16 years old are not allowed to enrol in coaching institutions or receive home tuition. Non-compliance with these guidelines is said to be a punishable offence. These measures aim to tackle the rising cases of suicides and regulate the unchecked expansion of private institutions. The central government has mandated that each state government is required to implement these guidelines. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: The Ministry of Education has issued guidelines stating that students under 16 years old are not allowed to enrol in coaching institutions or receive home tuition. Non-compliance is said to be a punishable offence. The central government has mandated that each state government is required to implement these guidelines.
Fact: The Ministry of Education issued guidelines on 16 January 2024, stating that coaching centres are required to hire tutors with at least a graduation qualification. Enrollment of students under the age of 16 is prohibited. These measures have been introduced to address the increasing incidents of suicides and to control the unregulated growth of private institutions. However, these guidelines set by the Indian government will only be enforceable if individual state governments decide to adopt them. Moreover, these guidelines apply to institutions with an enrollment of over 50 students and do not extend to home tuitions with less than 50 children. Hence, the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
On performing a relevant keyword search regarding the claims made in the viral post, we found that the Ministry of Education issued guidelines on 16 January 2024, stating that coaching centres are required to hire tutors with at least a graduation qualification. Enrollment of students under the age of 16 is prohibited, and students can only be enrolled after completing their secondary school examination. These measures have been introduced to address the increasing incidents of suicides and to control the unregulated growth of private institutions. Non-compliance to these guidelines is a punishable offence.
However, these guidelines set by the Indian government will only be enforceable if individual state governments decide to adopt them since education is included in the concurrent list. Moreover, the guidelines specifically define that “‘coaching’ means tuition, instructions, or guidance in any branch of learning imparted to more than 50 students but does not include counseling, sports, dance, theatre, and other creative activities” In other words, these guidelines apply to institutions with an enrollment of over 50 students and do not extend to home tuitions or similar setups with fewer than 50 enrolled students.
Several news reports were also published, highlighting these guidelines (here and here).
To sum up, the enforcement of the coaching centre guidelines issued by the central government relies on state governments.
