As students protest relentlessly, braving rain, heat and even assault, in the national capital, the mood in India's coaching Mecca, Kota, is pensive. The 50-km radius city in Rajasthan is entering this year's admission season under a cloud of uncertainty as coaching institutes and hostel owners fear the controversy over the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET-UG) paper leak, the trigger for the protests, could make ‘repeat’ medical aspirants think twice about returning.
Pramod Maheshwari, founder of Kota-based coaching centre Career Point Ltd, is concerned that there will be a delay in students deciding their options, which in turn will dent the admission numbers.
“Over the last couple of years, at most a lakh of students came to Kota to prepare for engineering and medical entrance tests. I expect the numbers to be around 70,000-80,000 this year. The drop will be because of the hesitancy amongst ‘repeat' students, who may not want to come to Kota again and prepare,” Maheshwari told Mint.
In coaching centre parlance, repeat students are those who want to take the tests again, hoping for a better score that could fetch them a seat in a government college, which is far cheaper than a private one.
The concerns come amid countrywide protests against the way NEET-UG, crucial for admission into undergraduate medical programmes, was conducted.
According to teachers, about 60% of the students come to Kota to prepare for medical exams, while the engineering college hopefuls appear for the Joint Entrance Examination. For Kota, these admissions are crucial because over the last couple of years, the number of students has dwindled from 200,000 of 2022, owing to the institutes opening centres in other cities, and the image of the city taking a dent on the back of students dying by suicide amid performance pressure.
“Having clarity on current exam prospects is an important part of the students' decision-making framework when deciding to prepare in the coming year,” said Allen Career Institute, one of the most prominent coaching centres in Kota in response to Mint’s queries.
The institute, however, said students’ sentiments were “unaffected by the re-NEET exam”. The second set of the examination took place on 21 June, after the first one of 3 May was cancelled on allegations of question paper leak. About 2.2 million students appear for this medical entrance examination.
Early trends
While Allen said a like-for-like comparison with last year's batch is difficult because admissions are still underway, and the cycle is prolonged, early trends indicate that overall enrolments across centres are marginally ahead of last year at the same point in time.
But not all agree with this view.
A top executive of a large test preparation firm said enrolments for NEET in Kota are marginally lower than 2025 and would at best be at par with last year despite the total number of students increasing across centres in the country.
“A lot depends on how the government will address the concerns of the students. There are about 4,000 hostels in Kota and a large number of them depend on ‘repeat’ students. We are all on wait and watch mode,” said Naveen Mittal, president of the Hostel Association of Kota.
Parents typically pay ₹40,000-1,00,000 a year for coaching and another ₹8,000-10,000 a month for hostel fees. The ‘repeat’ students may get a discount, and the severe competition amongst institutes leads to a discount war.
Changing trend
A Kota-based faculty member has spotted an interesting trend, in which students are skewed towards an engineering course, rather than medical. “Traditionally, institutes have around a 60:40 mix—60% NEET students and 40% JEE students," he said. "This year, however, the ratio is closer to 50:50," said the senior faculty in one of the top three coaching institutes in the city.
The faculty member also pointed to the limited number of mainstream higher education pathways perceived by students and parents. “Even with all the protests and negative sentiment around NEET, students don't really have many alternatives. Students are happy that someone is raising their voice regarding NEET issues. But at the end of the day, they don't really have an alternative. The system hasn't created enough mainstream options beyond engineering and medicine.” There are about 1.36 lakh medical 1.98 lakh engineering seats in India.
Education analysts point to the indecisiveness amongst students.
“The impact on admissions in Kota will be temporary due to the disruptions. Most of the students will be in two minds before taking admission because they will see if there is any change in the NEET system," said Narayanan Ramaswamy, partner and national leader of the education and skill development practice at KPMG in India. "Parents will be on a wait and watch mode before sending their students to coaching hubs.”