How the cannibals came for Kota's coaching giants

livemint.com:

Mint earlier reported. In fact, Unacademy, which has four branches in Patna, gave a 10% hike in April to some of its top performing teachers. "Had the issue around NEET not been developed, we would have got more students," a faculty member said.

The teacher added that there were teachers who moved in from Kota at a lower salary. Allegations of irregularities cropped up after the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET-UG) in May which tested 2.4 million students for admission to medical colleges. After several protests and arrests over steep marks and leaked question papers, the case landed in the Supreme Court.

The flight of students to smaller centres come at a time of pay cuts at Unacademy's faculty, while teachers at Allen and its unit Reliable have seen their fixed pay reduced by 20-40%. Teachers from rival PhysicsWallah have been transferred out of Kota as well to maintain the costs. While earlier students who could not clear NEET or secure a desired seat would move to Kota for another year of preparations, coaching centres don't expect the same trend this year.

Kota regrouped after two years of the pandemic, as thousands of students arrived for tuitions and lodging. The record enrolments led to a war for faculty and expansion to other centres. Coaching institutes that did not have their base in Kota also stand to gain.

"There has been a 20% increase in students this year who have registered for their engineering and medical entrance tests with us," said the founder of a local coaching centre which started in Gujarat's Vadodara about 20 years ago. "When the institutes from Kota opened their centres a couple of years ago in Vadodara, they offered hefty discounts of more than 50%. A bubble was created, and now