A reader responds: In defence of coaching institutions

Shreya Yadav, Tanya Soni and Nevin Dalvin were bright students who aspired to join India’s superior civil services of the country (“Three UPSC aspirants drown in flooded basement of Delhi coaching centre.”) But their dreams have been snuffed out by the unfortunate and avoidable incident in the basement of a prominent coaching institute for the Indian Administrative Service in New Delhi’s Old Rajinder Nagar. As they were working in the library in the basement of the institute, incessant rains caused it to flood, drowning them.

As a faculty member who coaches students for the civil service examinations and as a former Union Public Services Commission aspirant myself, I wholeheartedly offer my condolences to the family and the loved ones of these young people. To ensure that such tragic events are not repeated, accountability should be fixed at all levels.

At the same time, without attempting to absolve the coaching institute of its liability in the matter and without diluting the demand for better safety measures by institutes, it needs to be emphasised that trying to put all of the blame on the coaching institutions is akin to missing the trees for the woods.

When generalisations are made without an empirical basis, they tend to be mere opinions...

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