Super 30
Super 30 is a highly ambitious educational program running under the banner of "Ramanujan Society of Mathematics". It hunts for 30 meritorious talents from among the economically backward sections of the society and shapes them for India's most prestigious institution – the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). In the last four years, it has produced 94 IITians out of 120 students from extremely poor background. During this program students are provided absolutely free coaching, lodging and food. Super 30 targets students from extremely poor families. It is reflected in the group, which comprises wards of brick kiln worker, rickshaw puller, landless farmer, roadside vendor and the likes. They have all seen the change with sheer disbelief in their eyes that their children are now going to be top technocrats. Santosh and other underprivileged students in a state where nearly half the population cannot read or write have been helped by a small, derelict training school in the state capital, Patna. Most of the students are like Santosh, whose elder brother, Niranjan, never went to school. His younger brother, Saurabh, emboldened by his brother's feat, is pursuing his education.
No one helped me when I did not have money for my admission to foreign universities. So I try to live my dream through training these poor boys to crack the IIT test
Maths teacher Anand Kumar "We don't know what my brother Santosh has passed, but people say he will get a respectful job and earn good money when he starts working," says Niranjan. Patna's four-year-old Ramanujan School of Mathematics is the brainchild of a local maths teacher, Anand Kumar. Consider the results of this 30-seat school run out of a ramshackle yard - during its first year, 2003, 18 of the 30 students cracked the IIT entrance tests. Next year, the number rose to 22. In 2005, 26 students sailed into IITs. Last year, 28 students passed the exam. "This year, my school may well hit a jackpot with all my 30 students passing the entrance test," said Mr Kumar, 34, who has never been to an IIT, but won critical praise for his work in mathematics. Word has spread about his training school far and wide - some 5,000 students turn up from all over Bihar for a place in the school, run out of a thatched hut with fraying wooden benches and creaking tables. "We select 200 of them initially to train with us, and then finally, 30 are chosen depending on their talent, family background and education," says Mr Kumar. Anand Kumar says he set up the school after he himself was unable to cough up the money needed to finance his higher education when he received admission to Cambridge University. "I tried very hard to raise the money, but since I came from a poor family I failed. So I wanted to realise the dream to help poor students to crack the toughest engineering exam in the country," he says. Amazing feat His school is run on a shoe-string budget - students often stand up because of a shortage of benches while Mr Kumar and his group of teachers give lectures. Among the teachers is also one of the senior most policemen in Bihar, additional director-general Abhyanand, who uses only one name.
Santosh Kumar was the first in his family to go to school Mr Abhyanand, who himself went to an IIT, teaches physics without taking a salary from the school. "My remuneration is seeing the growing numbers of students coming from poor, rural families who succeed. I hope they pull their families and relatives out of penury," he says. He is not wide of the mark - 11 of the 28 successful students who cracked the IIT test last year were from the lower castes, the bottom-most rung of Indian society. The parents of students like Anupam Kumar (rank: 2,299) and Priyanshu Kumar (rank: 2,379) and Suresh Ram work as auto-rickshaw drivers, watch mechanic and construction workers respectively. Writer Sandipan Deb who has written a book on IITs says these students are "exposed to a whole new world" when they arrive on the IIT campuses. "The first thing they realise is that just because they spent their lives in a village does not make them any less bright than the kids from the metropolises. This is a huge confidence booster," he says. The training school's feat is amazing in a state where more than two million children are out of school, and the literacy rate is a shameful 47%.