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Super 30
INTRODUCTION
Super 30 is a new Indian educational program focused to serve as
a gateway to the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology for the
poorer sections of the society. This is the brainchild of Mr. Anand
and Mr. Abhyanand (serving IPS officer, Bihar Cadre), and under
this program 30 students from economically backward sections of
society are selected on merit basis. Formed in 2002 in Patna, it
has met with enormous success and popularity all over the globe. In
2010, it was selected by TIME magazine as the best Asian teaching
school.
AIM
The main objective of Super 30 is to track the talented bunch of
students from economically impoverished sections and hone their
skills by providing a conducive environment. These talented
students are provided quality teaching and an open atmosphere to
realize their potential. Financial constraints and impoverishments
should not come between students and their respective dreams. If
they have it in them, Super 30 is there to guide them to where they
belong, but may not reach for want of resources. Super 30s mission
is to help more and more students from economically poor sections
reach the IITs. Having shaped students for over a decade, Mr. Anand
has now realized the importance of catching them young. He wants to
start the talent hunt a bit earlier than Plus Two stage. If
talented students are spotted at the school-level, it can work
wonders.
BACKGROUND ABOUT MR. ANAND
Anand Kumar was born in Patna, Bihar. His father was a clerk in
the postal department and couldnt afford his education in an
English medium school. As a result Mr. Anand had to attend a public
Hindi medium school. During his schooling days, he developed a keen
interest in mathematics. He presented a paper on Number theory
during his graduation, which got published in The Mathematical
Gazette and Mathematical Spectrum. As a result of his effort , he
secured a seat in the prestigious Cambridge University. His family
scrambled to figure out a way to finance his studies, but before he
could leave for England, his father died suddenly. It fell to his
mother and Mr. Kumar to support the family; the dream of Cambridge
was shelved and instead she made papad and he sold them from a
bicycle. lso tutored students in maths to earn extra money. It is
then, that he discovered his knack for teaching and established the
super 30.
HISTORY In the year 2002, Mr Anand started super 30 along with
Mr. Abhyanand who himself was an enthusiastic about teaching. In
the first year they selected 30 students without any test only on
interview basis. These students were mostly
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from sorrow financial background and couldnt afford IIT-JEE
coaching for them-self. Anand Kumar managed their food and
accommodation during the course of education. Eighteen of these
students cleared a JEE exam and made it to the prestigious IITs. In
2004, about a thousand students applied for the super 30, entrance
test. And the result improved and 22 of those selected made it to
the IITs. In 2005, the number of successful students rose to 26.
And it rose over the years. The Bihar Govt. praised this initiative
and awarded Rs 50,000 to each of the students who qualified this
exam. In 2007, Abhyanand left the super 30 in order to focus on
different social initiatives. In 2010-2013 Super 30 achieved 100%
success rate.
SELECTION PROCESS The selection process is very rigorous.
Application forms are issued in April for which the organization
chargers Rs.90. The application form is displayed in the figure
below. This form requires details of parent occupation, financial
background, caste, educational qualification and educational
interest among other things.
Figure 1: Super 30 application form
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Once this application form is submitted the applicants have to
give a selection test. These occur twice, one in May and other in
June. The test is based to test a student in his/her knowledge of
Class Xth level Physics, Chemistry and Maths. A total of hundred
students are shortlisted and they have to undergo Personal
interviews. The interview panel consists of Super 30 alumni and Mr
Anand himself. Finally a total of thirty meritorious students
qualify and become a part of super 30.
PEDAGOGY Once the students join, they are provided free food and
accommodation by the organization. ???Incomplete
Figure 2: Anand Kumar teaching mathematics
FUNDING: Ramanujam School of Mathematics doesnt take any kind of
donation from any private or govt. firm or entity .All the expenses
are covered by Mr Anand who teaches a separate batch and the money
is taken out from the earnings.
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL PROFILING The Super 30 tend to take students
from poor sections of society i.e. those who belong to the lower
class. However as of now they have started taking students
belonging to Lower middle class as well. METHODOLOGY: Since we
wanted to know the social and economic profile of the students
firsthand, we made a Google form and circulated it to the Super30
alumni. The detailed form is attached in the Appendix A. The key
questions asked in the form are
1. Total annual income 2. Category 3. Father Occupation 4.
Mothers Occupation 5. Native Place type (Rural/Urban etc)
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6. Status of Family Accommodation (Rented Home/ Rural self Owned
Home/Urban Home)
7. Fathers Educational Qualification 8. Mothers Educational
Qualification 9. Occupational Preferences 10. Social work they
are/were involved in
OBSERVATIONS 1.
2.
3.
4.
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5.
6.
7.
8.
CONCLUSION: We got a total of 34 responses to the questions we
posed. The responses of these questions are represented in the form
of pi charts displayed earlier under the Observations section. As
seen from observation, many student (around 40% ) have family
income less than 1 lakh per annum. And in most cases it can be seen
that the Father is the working member of the family. Most of them
are either farmers, weavers or laborers. A majority of these people
have either primary or
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secondary education and they reside in villages. Many of the
students who put up the responses are currently studying in IITs or
NITs and almost each of them want to become an engineer and a
majority of them wish to work in the private sector as well. Apart
from these questions, we also asked the candidate about whether
they were participating in any social activity and most of were
either involved in teaching (around 30%) or not involved at
all.
SIMILAR INITIATIVES
Inspired by Mr Anands work, many organizations have started up
their own super 30. The most notable of them by Mr. Abhyanand, who
has started his own batch of 30 students on similar lines. Many
major industries like Vedanta have also started similar
organization as a part of their Corporate Social Responsibility.
Even private coaching institute like FIITJEE have started separate
batches (FORTUNATE 40) for few students having a weaker financial
background.
FUTURE SCOPE
// // Limitations & Problems: both in program and financial
aspects( for eg: financial Independence) 1. Women representation,2.
Only the cream gets selected //Future Scope/prospects //