In his Independence Day address from the ramparts of Red Fort, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made an announcement that the government would use India’s digital public infrastructure, good teachers and technology to build an extensive network offering free online coaching for examinations to ease the financial burden on poor families with talented children who cannot afford to spend lakhs on coaching.

Free access to good teachers and reliable material can certainly reduce inequality. But the announcement begs an important question: why has coaching become so indispensable in the first place?

In India, the bottled-water business and the coaching industry tell similar stories. When public systems fail to provide services of adequate quality and reliability, private industry moves into the gap. Families buy drinking water because they do not trust what comes out of the tap. They buy coaching classes because they cannot count on regular classes as adequate preparation for their children to pass through the gateways to higher education and employment.

There are, of course, other reasons for private tuition. But its extraordinary salience in India cannot be separated from weaknesses in the formal education system.

The numbers are revealing. According to the 2025 National Sample Survey cited in a recent India Forum article by Rahul Verma, 27 per cent of school-going children take private coaching. At the senior secondary level, the figure rises to 37 per cent.

Meanwhile, the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) continues to document serious deficiencies in foundational learning. In 2024, only 44.8 per cent of Class 5 children in government schools could read a........

© National Herald