Is coaching a must for Civil Service Preparation?

Answer of this question is yes and no, both. Do you need coaching or not? It totally depends upon you and only you. We hear every single year that aspirants cracking IAS examination without getting any coaching. So, the question then arises is that; why some aspirants clear this prestigious exam without coaching and some can’t clear it all even after enrolling themselves in coaching?

If you analyse the importance of coaching and the role they play in success of the aspirants, you will realise that coaching contribution is immense. Aspirants require coaching for:

Understanding the demand of Examination:

• Coaching is catalyst in the success of aspirants. As, coaching helps aspirants in understanding their strength and weakness and also providing insight on how to cover UPSC syllabus and what to read and what to leave?
• Understanding the demand of the question is the perquisite requirement of the examination. Without understanding the pattern and requirement you will fail to hit the bird’s eye with perfection.
• Having said that, I didn’t mean that in order to succeed in IAS Examination you need to attend coaching institutes. This is not necessary and this is not must, if you know; how to cover the vast syllabus by yourself within a limited time? , if you know; where to start and what to study? At this point of the time, role of coaching becomes important.

Coaching generally provide two Things:

1. Guidance (Marg Darshana):

• • Like, I said earlier. Role of the coaching is to provide guidance to the aspirants in formulating their own strategy and implement them in letter and spirit. Coaching ease out the pressure and burden of students by acting as beacon light for students.

2. Transmitting Knowledge (Gyan):

• • Another important factor of having coaching is, its knowledge transmission. As coaching institutes provide knowledge to students about the subject matter. Coaching institutes provide knowledge about the weak subjects of aspirants and thereby develop habit of questioning.
  • A good coaching institutes will act as facilitator if needs of aspirants. Many a times, you might even not know about aspirants fail to clear UPSC exam due to inappropriate and inadequate information from coaching classes.

Commercialisation of Coaching:

• At present, many aspirants fail to identify the good coaching form the list of bad coaching’s as in this tech-savvy world, where technology is the torchbearer in every single sector, bad institutes lurk the aspirants in their coaching’s.
• Obviously, there are good coaching classes which care for the student's progress and not their money. So, it’s up to the students that how they are identifying the good coaching.

Importance of Coaching in the online world:

• Before enrolling themselves in any Xyz coaching institutes, many aspirants have their thought perception that whether they need coaching or not as most of the requirements for the civil services they can fulfill by internet. So, again the answer is yes and no, both. Aspirants can fulfill some of their needs from internet like of study material, strategy to approach upsc examination. But, when it comes to personal attention, you will find it difficult to manage your requirement.
• You will require someone to identify your mistakes and how can you improve in that particular segment. However, this work can’t only be done by coaching institutes only, it can be done by your peers, your seniors also.

At last I would say that; any hardworking candidate can clear IAS exam without attending classroom coaching. Provided that, aspirant find out the requirement of the examination at very early stage and do the needy things accordingly. But, many aspirants may not be able to clear by self-study. It depends on his/her efficiency in self-study.