During an event to congratulate students who had cleared JEE Main, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said “The scheme was started on a pilot basis and we got feedback from a lot of students that they were not being able to cope with it. After taking the feedback, we stopped the scheme.”

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government started a scheme in 2016 under which it had collaborated with a private institute to provide free coaching to promising students for Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) on lines of Bihar’s Super 30. Surprisingly, This scheme was discontinued from this year, according to The Indian Express report. However, the decision to stop free has met with protest from aspirants in the national capital. Even teachers have come up with suggestions to continue the venture.

During an event to congratulate students who had cleared JEE Main, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said “The scheme was started on a pilot basis and we got feedback from a lot of students that they were not being able to cope with it. After taking the feedback, we stopped the scheme.”

Last year, 372 government school students had cleared JEE Main. This year, a total of 338 government school students cleared the JEE Main examination to get admission in engineering institutes, and become eligible to sit for JEE Advanced for admission to IITs.

Further suggestions also followed about the government holding such interactions with students who clear the National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) for admission to medical institutes.

A student of RPVV, Lajpat Nagar, talked about the need to fill vacant posts. “Our principal helped us with physics but it would have been nice if we had the same for chemistry and biology. We have a shortage of teachers in our school,” said the student, Pratistha. To this, Kejriwal replied, “We are coming up with a scheme where the school principal and school management committee can coordinate and fill the posts temporarily.”

While Delhi has stopped free coaching facility, neghbouring Haryana state government has launched a scheme, Super 100, to provide free coaching to meritorious students of state-run schools for JEE and NEET exams, accoridng to a report. Under the scheme, students of the various government schools who secure over 85 per cent marks in their Class 10th examination will be provided free coaching for JEE and NEET preparation for two years, she said. The students will have to sit for an entrance test to be selected for coaching under Super 100. A total of 225 students will be selected after the test, which is scheduled for the second week of June.