Maharashtra may make law to regulate private coaching classes: Tawde

Education minister Vinod Tawde told the Legislative Assembly that the law and judiciary department, which said the state has powers to make such a law, had given a preliminary go ahead.

The Maharashtra government is planning to bring a legislation to regulate private coaching classes in the state. Education minister Vinod Tawde told the Legislative Assembly that the law and judiciary department, which said the state has powers to make such a law, had given a preliminary go ahead.

Tawde said this in his reply to a calling attention motion raised by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator Sardar Tara Singh, who said the government had no control over thousands of such classes mushrooming in the city.

The minister admitted that the government had no control over these classes and an earlier attempt to draft a similar legislation had failed.

“This is a serious issue plaguing the education system. Parents are clearly being looted by these classes. This is also a nexus between colleges and classes. We hope to bring a law that will regulate such nefarious activities,’’ said Tawde. He added that an earlier committee report had made a string of recommendations to regulate coaching classes, including fixing teacher-student ratio in classes, qualification of teachers, infrastructure etc.

However, the minister added that the advocate general will be consulted before drafting any such law to ensure that the legislation stands the scrutiny of the high court.

Former chief minister and senior Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan said the state should see if the coaching classes can be debarred from publishing advertisements as that could be one way of curbing their reach.

Tawde agreed to examine if this was possible. He also said if there were complaints about the nexus between colleges and coaching classes that allowed students to bunk colleges and go to the classes, his department would take action against these institutes.