Recipe for success of downtrodden

But the Maths wizard Anand Kumar, who runs Super-30 institute for the under-privileged IIT aspirants, is not sitting on his laurels. He now wants that more and more downtrodden children from other States too should enter the IIT campus. With this in mind, he met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and suggested him that the poor students from rural hinterland should get three chances, instead of two, to appear in the IIT joint entrance examination.

The Prime Minister was keen to get a first-hand information from Anand about how he runs the free-lodging and coaching of 30 poor students in Bihar, and how he has helped them crack the IIT exams year after year. Anand was, therefore, invited to New Delhi by the PMO.  “I told the Prime Minister that there was no dearth of talent among the poor students. But since they are late starters, these meritorious kids should be given one additional chance than the average students,” Anand told Deccan Herald, shortly after his interaction with the PM was over.
Manmohan Singh, who always talks of inclusive growth, was quite appreciative of the advice given by Anand. He not only patted Anand on the back, but asked the mandarins of PMO to look into the suggestions made by him. Some of key recommendations made by Anand to reform the IIT examinations are:
n Many problems asked in IIT JEE are of Olympiad level. Rural students face difficulty to solve such problems, even if they have sound subject knowledge of Plus Two level.  Therefore, the problems asked in IIT JEE should be conceptual / analytical of 12th standard.

n Keeping in view vast disparity in the quality of education in cities and villages, the number of attempts for IIT-JEE should be confined to two for urban students. For poor and rural students, number of attempts should be at least three.
n Along with IIT-JEE results, the extended merit list (EML) of around 50,000 students is also published. This becomes a tool in the hands of coaching institutes to take gullible students from rural areas for a ride. They showcase EML results as IIT-JEE results. Therefore, IIT should release EML results after a few days of IIT JEE results.
n Marking of answers in Optical Response Sheet (ORS) should be allowed to be done by black pen instead of a HB pencil to avoid tampering of ORS. In addition, many of the ORS sheets, when marked with HB pencil are rejected by the  due to faint impression. If marked with a pen, such problems will be minimized.

n The solutions of IIT JEE after the examination are also used by coaching centres as a tool for publicity. So, IIT should publish the answers of the problems along with their solutions in the late evening of the examination day, instead of publication after 15 days.    

n IIT-JEE should provide marks to students the day it publishes results. Many students miss out with small margin. They possess the talent but miss out due to fierce competition.

While explaining the future expansion plan of his programme, Anand said he wanted to start a school with own campus and hostel facility so as to nurture the students from economically impoverished sections. Students from other States would also get an opportunity to be part of the programme, Anand said and added, “From next year onwards, I am planning to increase the intake from 30 to 100 students”.
Anand also disclosed that he was planning to create a platform of Super 30 Alumni Association, where alumni, many of them are in world’s best institutions, can help those who have been left out.