Survival of the fittest

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, February 23

After remaining closed for nearly seven months due to the pandemic, the IELTS coaching centres, though were permitted by the government to open in the last week of October, the operators rue that students are not turning up.

They said the student strength was down by almost 50 per cent. With a spurt in Covid cases in Punjab recently, the operators are worried that another lockdown would finish the industry.

In 2021, the agenda for these centres is to stay afloat and survive till the countries as Australia and New Zealand start offering visas to students. Kanwar Bikram Chabal, president of the IELTS Centres Owners Association who runs KBC International Centre near Khalsa College said, “The students are not coming for coaching due to two reasons. Firstly as IELTS score is valid for two years only, they do not want it to get wasted. Secondly, due to the ongoing farmer protest most students from rural areas are busy filling in for the elders.”

The students from rural areas who are comparatively less versed in English than their urban counterparts and need tuitions to clear the examination constitute a large proportion of the total students.

A booming industry before the start of the pandemic, the owners stated that the biggest concern is the high rents that most of them are paying to the landlords.

Sumit Sharma of Ixora Academy, said, “Staying in business is the biggest challenge for the IELTS institutions. People had hoped that number of students who eventually grow but as yet it has not happened. With the present student strength, most centres are not even managing to recover their running costs.” He has hinged hopes on the vaccination, now that the drive has begun for common people, the situation might just improve.

Another operator, Danish of Prime Academy Batala, said, “In rural areas, students choose to study in a country in which they have close relative or family member. With many countries not allowing foreign students, the students also have postponed their plans.”