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

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

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)

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.

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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

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 //