Six welfare CoEs to drill Intermediate students for IIT, NIT and NEET

Andhra Pradesh will set up six Centres of Excellence for SC, ST and BC Intermediate students with a hard focus on IIT, NIT and NEET coaching, Tribal Welfare Department Secretary M.M. Nayak said on 1 September 2026 coverage from Visakhapatnam.

One ST centre has been established at the boys’ residential building in Marikavalasa, Visakhapatnam, chosen because the city is an education hub. Physics Wala was selected through a bidding process for specialised coaching. The Marikavalasa CoE will take 600 students—300 seats each for MPC and BiPC—with 150 first-year and 150 second-year seats in each stream. Students were selected on Class 10 marks under Gurukulam Secretary supervision. The programme will run as co-education and include online examinations.

The six-centre map, as stated, includes three CoEs for SC students at Tadikonda, Meghadrigadda and Kota, one for ST students at Marikavalasa, and two for BC students. Nayak said the decision to concentrate on Intermediate students followed disappointment with an earlier model that had not produced expected results. The new design is meant to give specialised coaching so welfare-school students can compete more effectively in national entrance examinations.

On hostels, he said the government had focused on welfare schools and hostels for two years, with hostel repairs completed last year at a cost of ₹143 crore, and that RO plants, toilets and other basic facilities were being provided at the centres. Those rupee and facility details matter because coaching brands fail when residential infrastructure collapses—power, water, toilets and beds decide whether a 600-seat centre is a campus or a crowd.

This cutting is the statewide CoE policy announcement of 1 September, not a rehash of earlier protest coverage around Marikavalasa campus shifts. The established facts are six CoEs across SC/ST/BC categories, Marikavalasa’s 600-seat ST centre with Physics Wala after bidding, stream-wise seat splits, Class 10 merit selection, co-education with online exams, named SC sites at Tadikonda, Meghadrigadda and Kota, and ₹143 crore hostel-repair spending cited for the wider welfare-school push. Entrance coaching inside welfare hostels is a high-stakes bet. IIT, NIT and NEET pipelines reward long study hours, stable electricity, and teachers who can teach to the exam—not only to the Intermediate board. By naming Physics Wala after a bid for Marikavalasa, the State has outsourced specialised pedagogy while keeping residential control with Gurukulam selection on Class 10 marks. That hybrid can work if attendance, online test data and hostel welfare stay aligned; it fails if coaching hours collide with unpaid mess bills or crowded dorms.

The three SC sites at Tadikonda, Meghadrigadda and Kota, plus two BC centres still to be detailed in fuller notifications, extend the model beyond one Visakhapatnam campus. Readers should separate this CoE build-out from earlier protest stories about campus shifts: the 1 September record is a coaching-and-hostel policy announcement with named capacity at Marikavalasa and a ₹143 crore hostel-repair backdrop.