I was reading the Sunday Times of India this morning. Yes, I still buy the print edition, an old habit I have not managed to shake. My eyes fell on the front page, a full page advertisement from Narayana Educational Institutions, four young men in white coats, stethoscopes draped around their necks, celebrating their NEET 2026 results. One name stood out, AIR 9, a boy called Gaurav Singh.
Something nagged at me. I felt certain I had seen that name before. So I went to the shelf where yesterday’s papers still sit, waiting for the raddiwala, and pulled out Saturday’s edition. And there it was, a full front page advertisement from Sri Chaitanya Techno School, also celebrating its toppers. AIR 9, Gaurav Singh, same application number and all.
Two coaching institutes, two consecutive days, two competing full page advertisements in the same newspaper, and both laying claim to the very same boy.
I sat with that for a while, because it tells you a great deal about a business that has quietly attached itself to Indian medical education. A topper very often owes these centres little or nothing. Some students barely sit through the classes their parents have paid lakhs for. Yet the moment a rank is announced, every coaching chain with any connection to the boy, real or invented, rushes to put his face on its masthead, because a rank sells next year’s batch far better than any teaching ever could.
And it works, because parents fall for it. Anxious, well meaning parents, worried that their child will fall behind, pay enormous sums chasing an illusion sold to them on a newspaper cover. They are made to believe that this is the only road to a medical seat, when in truth it was the boy’s own discipline, his own hours at the desk, that got him there, and nothing else.
A seventeen or eighteen year old’s hard earned seat in a medical college gets turned into an advertisement before he has worn a white coat for a single real day of work. That, to me, is a sad commentary on what medical entrance preparation has become in this country. Peer pressure, clever marketing, promotional stunts, all shaping a young doctor’s path before medicine itself has had any chance to.
This needs to stop.
I wonder about the candidates. Can I take money from two or more of them for the same thing? I think I am in the wrong place.
On the lighter side: the advantage of owning two print editions. And seriously, this is a strange world we live in, but nothing feels strange or surprising anymore.
False propaganda, blatant lies, and shamelessly twisted truths have become the order of the day and contemporary ethics
Sir,
Most students enroll in multiple coaching programs as the exams approach and work through numerous question banks from different sources. That’s the current trend, and coaching institutes are quick to showcase toppers as their brand ambassadors.
In the end, however, success is driven by countless hours of disciplined hard work, with students making the best use of study material from a variety of sources—not by any single coaching institute.
This is a very aptly worded description of today’s state of medical education.
This kind of cheating has now become a standard practice. Come to Nagpur, and you will find several banners in city squares with large photos of students who have cleared NEET-UG, claiming to have been coached by these institutes that run education as a pure business. Expensive gifts—even new cars—are being offered to these students to allow the institutes to use their photos alongside favorable messages praising them.
Mama, when Sakshi was in the 12th standard and the results came out, a coaching institute called and said, ‘We will give you 5,000 rupees. Come to our office to celebrate, and tell everyone that you took coaching from our institute.’