Gone are the days when students went from home to college to coaching centres during pre-university (PU) years. In the last few years, with PU colleges that offer integrated coaching classes mushrooming across the city, students spend close to 12 hours in colleges before going home. Many such colleges also offer boarding facilities and hence, for the better part of two years, students are engrossed in academics with little space for recreation. While there are many such centres up and running, government directives on them are far from clear.
Additional training
What are integrated PU colleges? While regular PU colleges offer the usual science, commerce and arts combinations, which are prescribed by the Department of Pre University Education (DPUE), integrated colleges offer additional training to prepare for competitive examinations like IIT – JEE, NEET, CET, CLAT, CPT and lately even UPSC. The trend of such colleges started in the city around 10 to 12 years ago as education institutions aimed to cut down on the need for separate coaching centres by offering such training at the colleges themselves. This training is usually provided after regular classes, thereby extending the total hours spent at colleges to more than eight hours.
