Englishविशेषसाक्षात्कार

INTERVIEW : SK PANDEY, ADVOCATE AND TEACHER

S K Pandey is a Lawyer at Delhi High court and Supreme Court of India  and Founder, Chanakya Law Classes.  Chanakya law classes(CLC) is one of the best coaching Institute for cracking Judicial services exam( including the higher judiciary), UPSC with the law as an optional paper. Works on No profit No loss basis with the theme ” Let the education be not commercialized”. 

  1. When did you start CLC?

Due to some family responsibility, I shifted from Delhi to Patna and constitute CLC, I never expect thought that my institute will gain this much success. We have 1500 plus students spread into different WhatsApp groups and we have also about 960 plus students on telegram and I gave them live online classes in the night. I always shared my strategy to prepare for the exam, no coaching institute shared their strategy, this is not my concern, my only concern is that many people can take advantage of these free classes. I gain pleasure by helping people, especially in the educational field. CLC was constituted in the year 2018, and I never campaign or advertise it. Many suggestions come from the people to advertise but we stick to our motive to keep it a non-commercial institute. We keep our price at a minimal level and give the best quality education. I give two types of services: one is free services and second paid services (paid services is non-commercial) . Gradually people start knowing about this and we are not concerned about what future we are going to achieve. We are only in the view that we honestly discharge our duty.

  1. What is the motive of your institute?

Education is very necessary. The right to life is meaningless unless one is properly educated. If anyone is deprived of proper education, whatever may be the reason so she devised to live is seriously jeopardized. though this is the responsibility of the state, unfortunately, state policies government policies or any other form of government had not focused on education, no doubt, there are dozens of educational institutes but everybody can’t afford it. For example, CLNU the college where your study also has a very high fee rate, if a student is qualified for admission and he/she belongs to a middle-class family, it would be impossible for them to get admitted there. And this is a big issue, according to my opinion the basic services like health like education should not be commercialized. And people who can put their efforts should come forward for the welfare of society. As I am running CLC and guiding and solving student’s queries every day. One should indeed start the efforts on a personal level. About what contribution you are providing to the society under the head of education be not commercialized. So I am providing free live classes to the students, I provide them set of questions, preparation for mains, we provide free e-library. The main motive is that let people realize that education, educational services are the most important services for human life. There are too many education mafias, such as private coachingand institutes. It is my viewpoint, you may agree or may not agree that is up to you, but what I realize personally as a human.Furtherininstitutions like CLNU you also had to pay around 10lakh and you are also very much aware to the placements student gets after passing out, many of them had to run to Delhi for further coachings which again costs about 2.5 to 2.8 lakhs. And the main concern is that, if a student needs to get coached after passing from NLU then it is far better to do LLB from Patna law college in 5 thousand rupees and then shift to Delhi for coaching. It will save those 10 lakhs too. Truly, NLU provides very good facilities, it has well-trained professors but they have an academic approach instead of a competitive approach. The main purpose is to provide education to the people at the cheapest rate without compromising the quality that must be by no way inferior to anyone. You have two options, either you’ve started a business just business activity or you have started a mission. If it is a mission, profit or loss does not matter. If it is a mission you must continue even if there is a loss. In Delhi where all other institutes are asking for 2.5 to 2.8 lakhs, I am only charging 65 thousand for the whole period until a student is placed. We are the best quality of education too. we started the telephonic interview, telephonic mock tests, for the very first time during the 30th BPSC interview when all the students were scared of it. All these facilities we provided were free of cost. When I started telephonic interviews, many people from rival coaching classes used to laugh at me. But the interview is one line, that you have to deliver the right thing in an appropriate way along with conceptual clarity and avoid unnecessary words. If these things are followed then the interview has to be successful with good marks. So, we the same and never expected this huge success. 91 out of 100 students got placed from CLC. I have call details, WhatsApp messages, mark sheets, admission forms but I never advertised for my service. There were no banners, no posters, no pamphlets. Now I am providing free e-study materials (softcopy). All other coaching institutes provide hardcopy which adds a burden to the student while traveling. If one has to go to another state for an exam he/she has to take two extra suitcases for books and materials but softcopy is convenient and easy to use.

  1. What inspired you to take such a great initiative towards education? 

I have been teaching from class 10th and I think that if a person is not educated in the right way they are lacking the basic need. I am a man full of emotions I see various people being uneducated due to the money problem. The government made laws like mentioned in article 21 various directive principles of state policy but only for children from 6 to 14 years old. Its good but a country cannot develop without higher education, college-level education, so we cannot even imagine we cannot even think for a moment unless we ensure proper education are not, only the proper education, a good education at affording costs. You can check any of the educational field either law or medicals, or engineering, etc. most of them are privatized and the condition of government institutions are pathetic. So I decided to contribute something for society as much as I can do from my end in my way. I am trying my best to evolve my service. We have a still to several thousand miles ahead and that journey has started and we are marching ahead, slowly but confidently, firmly and strongly.

  1. What do you hope to accomplish through CLC?

Recently I have started giving scholarships to a deserving student and because of their monetary angle they are not able to complete their study and because I am a law student I can only provide free law education conveniently. We never discriminate them and we only provide scholarships to students only with a genuine cause but the difficulty is that in the name of scholarship much fake application is coming out. We only provide scholarships to people in need, who are a meritorious student and their level of commitment only after evaluating them with the genuine cause. Through CLC I want to help committed children to proceed with their study without any obstacles and I am always ready to provide them all assistance. This is my small mission and how long it will go I don’t know but from my sides, I am giving my honest effort.

  1. As you have talked about the welfare state, what do you expect from the government in the field of education?

I expect from the government to control the price of education. The institution which is statutory like NLUs ( all NLUs are created through statutory provision), the government should control their charges not only in NLUs but from all field, whether it is medical or engineering they should control their charges so that meritorious students should get an equal opportunity to avail themselves. Our government does not have price control legislation, no government had ever paid attention to the price of these institutions. It is like an open economy everyone is free to fix the price of its services. In our constitution there is a provision of right against exploitation, these institutions are looting the money in the name of education, this is what I feel personal, I am not casting any aspersions against anyone, in a nutshell, look at the institution and their charges. My opinion is that charges should be reasonable so that many people avail the opportunity, by the development of only limited people we can not develop our nation, the development of Nation and society occurs by development by every single citizen of our country. our population is 130 crore and I could be served in a way that more people can take this opportunity. Only I can not serve this purpose, many people are there who are doing good work in this field, only two or three people can not make any difference. I never advertise my initiative because my motive is non-commercial and if I advertise my charges will go higher, I never believe in advertising the only thing I want people to come forward and volunteer some effort.

  1. What are the problems you faced to accomplish CLC?

Every coaching has its propaganda. Our 38th Bihar Judicial results are quite shocking. Today I want to share this publicly with my students ( I have all the evidence, their admission form, call recording, everything) I have provided them, free classes, because of their financial issue. I teach them 8-9 hours daily on the telephone, in class, and during exam time 9-10 hours, even when I was ill, they will become judge and I expected from them that at least they will pay their dues, so that I will run my institute and I don’t want to take their name publicly, I never expected that after results many students were auctioned. Many of our students go to another institute and make a statement in their favor. Sometimes my conscience tells me that Making these people judge, I have committed a big mistake, anyway, this is their activity. It is not that all students are bad, many students are there whom I help and have telephonic interview session are still stand with us. Since I always expected that teachers and students shared a pious relationship. Every time successful students get auctioned and they refer their juniors to join these institutes and gain some commission. I am telling all this publicly based on evidence. Anyway, I don’t want to blame anyone individually. We have our expenses for running this institute like electricity bill, staff fee and we are teaching free and if students after becoming judge they didn’t pay their fee. Once I thought to write chief Justice but since I am a teacher I don’t want to spoil their carrier. This is my painful story but these things don’t affect my mission. This is part and parcel of life, as it is rightly said in Geeta” Jo huaacchaHua, jo ho rahahaiwobhiaccha ho rhahaiaurjohogawobhiacchahoga”. This was a chapter that is closed now and I forget these things and move forward. Money is not an issue, the mission is not for profit but still, we are investing from our wallet to meet the purpose.

Interviewed by Priya Singh