“Mandatory counselling is a part of the guidelines framed to de-stress the students”, said Ravi Kumar, district collector of Kota. The Kota district administration plans to implement the state guidelines for mandatory counselling for students who are taking admission to coaching institutes in Kota. The Kota administration is taking this step because of the increasing no. of suicides. Counselling will help the students and their parents to understand the challenges one has to face while preparing for IIT, AIPMT, AIIMS etc and the counsellors will also introduce them to various career options other than IITs and AIPMTs. The number of seats in India in IITs is just 10,000 against more than 14 lakh aspirants. The mandatory counselling will start from this academic session 2016-17. Every year approximate 1,20,000 students from all over the country come to Kota for coaching.
The coaching institutions will organise counselling sessions this academic year. It will not be only for the students but also for the parents and guardians. The counsellors will introduce them to the amount of pressure and the amount of preparation is required, and also, counsellors will try to give the possible options other than these fields. An aptitude test has also been recommended as it will help determine the right field for the student.