I have covered education for over two decades now, and every April, I brace myself for the same flood of calls from anxious parents. Yesterday, April 20, was no different. The JEE Main Session 2 results dropped, 26 students scored a perfect 100 percentile, and my phone hasn’t stopped buzzing since.
But the call that stuck with me came from a father in Varanasi. His daughter scored 99.2 percentile. “Maam, we spent almost 18 lakh on coaching in Kota. She worked so hard to get a good score. Will she get into an IIT?”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him the truth directly, so I’m writing this instead.
THE MATH NOBODY WANTS TO DISCUSS
Here’s what the headlines celebrated yesterday: 26 students achieved 100 percentile in Session 2, more than double the 12 who managed it in January. This sounds like a small, elite club, right? Wrong.
According to coaching institute analysis, approximately 55,000-60,000 students scored above 99 percentile in Session 2 alone. Combine both sessions, and you’re looking at over 1.2 lakh students in the 99+ percentile bracket.
Now here’s the gut punch. The IITs (all 23 of them) collectively offer around 17,385 undergraduate seats, add the NITs (National Institute of Technology) and you get roughly 24,000 more.
That’s approximately 41,000 seats in what most families consider “worthy” institutions, against 1.2 lakh students who scored above 99 percentile.
Someone explain to me how this is a meritocracy?
Rs 58,000 CRORE INDUSTRY BUILT ON BROKEN DREAMS
Now, let’s talk about the elephant in the room. The Indian test preparation industry has ballooned to an estimated Rs 58,000 crore, with engineering entrance coaching accounting for nearly 40% of this market.
A two-year integrated JEE programme at a top Kota coaching centre now runs between Rs 8-12 lakh in tuition fees. Factor in hostel accommodation, study materials, test series, living expenses, and the inevitable “miscellaneous” category, and families routinely shell out Rs 15-25 lakh.
Kota alone houses an estimated 2.5 lakh students. The annual economic activity here crosses Rs 4,500 crore. This isn’t education, it’s an industry built on parental anxiety and teenage dreams.
According to a LinkedIn post, even an 18% GST can’t stop India’s booming Rs 58000 Crore coaching industry!
The jist of the post is mentioned here: “Here are 3 facts about the industry’s growth: 1) From a current size of Rs 58,000 crore, it’s set to touch Rs 1.34 lakh crore by 2028 and a Rs 1.45 lakh crore by 2033. That’s a 10.4% CAGR in a sector. 2) GST revenue from coaching surged from Rs 2,240 crore in 2019-20 to Rs 5,517 crore in 2023-24. 3) This GST income is a 146% jump in just 4 years.”
I know families who’ve sold farmland, taken loans against jewellery, depleted retirement savings. All this for a shot at three letters: I-I-T.
The coaching centres advertise their success stories, the AIR 1s beaming from giant billboards, the perfect scorers featured in newspaper ads. What they don’t mention is the lakhs who scored 99+ percentile and still won’t get into a top institute.
The marketing machine sells certainty, but reality delivers probability and terrible odds at that.
WHERE DID ALL THESE TOPPERS COME FROM
This year’s numbers should alarm anyone paying attention to Indian education. Over 25 lakh students registered for JEE Main 2026 across both sessions, a record. Roughly 24 lakh actually appeared.
In 2022, Session 1 registrations stood at 8.7 lakh. Four years later, that number has exploded to 13.5 lakh for Session 1 alone. The candidate pool has grown by over 50%.
How about the seats? Have they grown in proportion? No, they have crept up by maybe 5%.
We’ve created a system where the definition of “exceptional” keeps shifting. A 99 percentile means you’ve outperformed 99% of test-takers. That should mean something. Instead, it translates to a rank somewhere between 10,000-12,000.
At that rank, Computer Science at any of the original seven IITs, including Bombay, Delhi, Madras, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Roorkee, Guwahati, is a fantasy. The closing rank for CS at IIT Bombay last year was 66.
Sixty-six.
MARKS INFLATION IS THE REAL CRISIS
We talk endlessly about economic inflation in this country. We debate petrol prices and tomato costs with genuine passion. But there’s another inflation quietly corroding Indian education, and almost nobody acknowledges it.
When 26 students score a perfect 100 percentile in a single session, the examination has lost its discriminatory power. When 1.2 lakh students clear 99 percentile, the benchmark becomes meaningless.
This isn’t limited to JEE. Board exam results have been climbing for years. Schools trumpet their “100% pass rates.” Students with 95% in Class 12 struggle to find a seat in Delhi University.
The cutoffs keep rising because the scores keep rising, and the scores keep rising because everyone has figured out how to game the system.
The coaching industry has essentially reverse-engineered these exams. Success is no longer about innate ability or genuine understanding, it’s about pattern recognition, time management tricks, and access to the right resources.
We’ve democratised exam-cracking while keeping opportunity scarce.
So, what happens next? The top 2.5 lakh JEE Main scorers now become eligible for JEE Advanced on May 17. IIT Delhi conducts it this year.
Last year, about 54,000 students qualified in Advanced. They competed for roughly 17,000 IIT seats. Do the arithmetic here, 36,000 students who technically “passed” the IIT entrance exam went home without an IIT admission.
For the Varanasi father who called me yesterday, the road ahead looks somewhat like this… his daughter, despite her 99.3 percentile, will likely end up at a newer IIT in a branch she didn’t prefer, or an NIT, or a private college that charges twice what an IIT does.
The 18 lakh his family invested bought her a lottery ticket, a well-designed, extensively marketed lottery ticket, but a lottery ticket nonetheless.
THE QUESTION NOBODY ASKS
Here’s what keeps me awake at night… What are we actually testing for?
A student trained for two years in Kota, fed a diet of shortcuts and previous-year patterns, can crack JEE. Does that make them a better engineer than someone from a government school in Jharkhand who scored 95 percentile without expensive coaching?
The exam measures a very specific skill, performing under pressure on a particular question format. It doesn’t measure curiosity, creativity, resilience, or the ability to actually build something. We have constructed an elaborate, expensive, soul-crushing system that filters for test-taking ability. Then we wonder why Indian engineering graduates struggle with innovation.
Maybe the problem isn’t the students. Maybe it’s us, the adults who designed this machinery and convinced ourselves it was measuring merit. The joke, as they say, is on us.
(The author is Editor, Education. Views are personal.)
