Coaching has become more pronounced, with east India driving the boom

Private coaching has become far more widespread across India over the past eight years. Government data released on August 27 shows that two in five secondary and higher secondary students now rely on such coaching, a trend most pronounced in eastern states, where more than half are enrolled.

National rise across levels

Nationally, the sharpest increase in private tutoring has been at higher levels of schooling. In 2017–18, 30 percent of secondary and 28 percent of higher secondary students took coaching. By 2025, that share rose to nearly 38 percent in both categories. Middle school also saw a jump—from 22 percent to 30 percent, while participation at the primary level climbed to 23 percent from 16 percent. Even in pre-primary, where levels were modest, enrolment has remained steady at about 12 percent.

East dominates

The regional picture, however, reveals stark contrasts. More than half (59 percent) of students in eastern India take extra classes, a rate more than double the national average of 27 percent. The North East (25 percent) and the West (23 percent) also reported higher-than-average participation, while the South (12 percent) and North (15 percent) remain relatively lower.

At the state level, the variation is even more striking. Tripura leads with nearly 79 percent of students in coaching, followed closely by West Bengal (75 percent) and Odisha (57 percent). Bihar too stands high at 53 percent, underscoring why the East dominates the national trend. In contrast, states such as Mizoram (2.4 percent), Ladakh (2.8 percent), and Rajasthan (7.2 percent) reported very limited participation. Delhi (39 percent) and Jharkhand (40 percent) also stand out as large states with above-average reliance on coaching.

Coaching costs

The financial burden mirrors these participation trends. For higher secondary students, average expenditure on private coaching at Rs 6,384 per annum was nearly 12 times that of pre-primary students and more than double the all-India average across categories. In many eastern states, spending on coaching even outstrips school education costs. Bihar, for instance, recorded annual coaching expenses per student of Rs 6,161—104 percent higher than the Rs 5,907 spent on schooling itself. West Bengal (113 percent) and Odisha (114 percent), display similar trends, where households allocate more to coaching than to formal school education.

Nationally, Indians spend an average of Rs 8,973 per student annually on private coaching, amounting to 69 percent of their school education expenditure (Rs 13,051). But in certain states, such as Goa, Assam, and Chhattisgarh, this ratio exceeds 120 percent.