30 - Hows this for IIT JEE Coaching - Time Magazine

Fri, May 14 03:00 PM 2010 Math whiz' Super 30 in Time list Patna, May 14 (PTI) Time Magazine has selected mathematician Anand Kumar's school - Super 30 - in the list of Best of Asia 2010. Last year, all the 30 students of the coaching institute set up by Kumar in Patna cracked the IIT-JEE examination. "Super 30 centre has a pass rate of 100 per cent. What makes that feat even more remarkable is that these students are the poorest of the poor who would otherwise never be able to afford full-time coaching," the Time magazine said. The students need to pass a test to get into 'Super 30' and then commit themselves to a year of 16-hour daily studies. Since 2003, 182 of a total 210 students have made it to the IITs. The institute's founder Kumar who missed a chance to study at Cambridge for lack of money gives full scholarships, including room, boarding and travel to all the students in a batch of 30 students. Expressing happiness over the recognition, Kumar said, "It is a pleasurable moment for us as 'Super 30' has become an example of what''s possible when human potential is tapped." Education is the only weapon for downtrodden and to rid themselves of poverty and social exploitation, he said. The project has won the notice of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who met Kumar in February to hear his plan to launch a national program for talented rural children. _________________________________ On 15/05/10 11:00 PM, Achuta Ramaiah  wrote: hi ram a great article. imagine 100% results from Bihar ?? I remember having heard of a bihar village which sends many successful iitians chaps every  year - they are married off at a young age  to take their mind away from sex etc and lo they do well in Bihar !! No wonder in Bihar you find everthing - genius, dacoity, thefts, political wrangling, best yoga ashrams etc.. A paradox really. One of my classmates in iitm 67 batch  did electrical with us nearly topped the batch - obtained a doctorate from Phoenix university married a Christian girl in USA , sister of Dr Sidhu's wife and was doing well in  bringing up sick companies with no profits and made a name for such work . He did join a ashram in Bihar and wanted to do well in designing a medical instrument cheap for Indians for giving BP , heart rates, sugar levels all in one go . he almost made it but unfortunately picked up viral fever in Africa while touring with his guru and died. His brother lives in Hyderabad and communicate on Internet. He was divorced and is survived by his only daughter Radhika. I made a mention of him in my article under tragic death heading. This by the way . yes do you not  think that Arun Kumar be encouraged . Imagine he is high lighted by Time magazine and even PM notices it - all because he is connected with iit jee and sibal etc are gunning for IITJEE. life is lie that. achuta regards to your wife and famil. jai sai ram __________________________ From: Ranjan Pant  I think efforts like this have the potential to really tranform rural India - it is quite possible in 10-20 years from now, many of these 30 (who are obviously very hard-working and bright) will become successful in life and "give-back" to their villages/rural areas, start new industries/schools there.. -Ranjan ___________________________ From: Varada Raju IITM 1970  I think the entire country and the states of AP, TN & Karnataka ( the parents in these stastes) in particular are much too obsessed with JEE. Agreed IIT gets the cream of the students ( this is the first sentence I heard in IIT) and produces outstanding graduates.                                                    But what about the 2000 or so engineering colleges at the second, third, fourth levels ? What kind of teachers do they have ? In my opinion the fate of the country depends much more on their products than on the handful of IITians. Because they are the ones who must run tomorrow's industries, organisations and the like. If you remember TTJ said in the silver jubilee RU, " If I need someone to do research and develop a new product, I look for an IITian. But if I want an engineer to run my machines and who can handle the bolts and nuts kind of job, I recruit a NON- IITian" It is my guess that there are ten jobs for the routine engineer than for the inventor.                          I think we are all too obsessed about the JEE, the teaching in IIT, the system and so on and do not give a thought to the quality of the products from the non- IITs. My point is instead of worrying too much what we should do to the schools in order to get more people of a given school into IIT, we should see how we can improve the standards at the the non- IITs. I have no specific ideas how this can be done. Regards Varada ____________________________ From: DC CHANDRASEKHAR IITM  Date: Tue, 18 May 2010 21:55:48 +0530 (VARADA) You should contact and get NPTEL that is available for Rs 1 lakh and this contains all the engineering course materials developed by IIT . In case you need any help pl let me know. _________________________________ From: Priya Ranjan Swarup IITK  Date: Mon, 31 May 2010 14:19:47  Ram Don't you see some kind of moonlighting happenning here.  I am confused! PRS __________________________________ From: Vickram Crishna -IITD Anand Kumar spotted the cracks in the IIT-JEE system, and has exploited it to good purpose (giving the poorest but talented people a chance). However, the same cracks have being exploited for the opposite reason (getting people rich enough to pay, a seat in IIT) for much longer than 3 years. Since we all knew about this, I find it hard to believe that the IITs themselves had not.  I feel our campaign to restore the JEE to its original purpose needs to take note of both these phenomena. Just as we do not know, but fear with regret, about the quality of modern IIT grads, we do not know how these poorest will fare once they emerge from the campus. Still, if even one does make something of himself (are they all male?) it will be heartwarming and a tremendous accolade for the IIT system, despite and in spite of everything.  I do not want to disparage the Super 30 solution, but still want to believe that the JEE remains the country's only chance to filter enough people to an institute of excellence, to make a change. Of course, you and I are among the people who were supposed to make that change happen already. However, in this context, let me tell you a story that is apocryphal in the J Krishnamurti school system. Sometime in the late 50s, J asked the principal of Rishi Valley where the leaders of change were, that the school was supposed to produce. In a miff, he quit and started the Blue Mountains School, which still continues to educate differently, at a very small scale - and arguably, a very small scale is the only way that true education can be imparted.   From: Vickram Crishna -IITD-AADT <vvcrishna@gmail.com> Date: Mon, 31 May 2010 20:01:36 +0530 To: Ram Krishnaswamy-IITM <ramrajah@optusnet.com.au> Subject: Re: FW: All 30 students of Super 30*, a free coaching centre in Bihar, cracked IIT ***** Anand Kumar spotted the cracks in the IIT-JEE system, and has exploited it to good purpose (giving the poorest but talented people a chance). However, the same cracks have being exploited for the opposite reason (getting people rich enough to pay, a seat in IIT) for much longer than 3 years. Since we all knew about this, I find it hard to believe that the IITs themselves had not.  I feel our campaign to restore the JEE to its original purpose needs to take note of both these phenomena. Just as we do not know, but fear with regret, about the quality of modern IIT grads, we do not know how these poorest will fare once they emerge from the campus. Still, if even one does make something of himself (are they all male?) it will be heartwarming and a tremendous accolade for the IIT system, despite and in spite of everything.  I do not want to disparage the Super 30 solution, but still want to believe that the JEE remains the country's only chance to filter enough people to an institute of excellence, to make a change. Of course, you and I are among the people who were supposed to make that change happen already. However, in this context, let me tell you a story that is apocryphal in the J Krishnamurti school system. Sometime in the late 50s, J asked the principal of Rishi Valley where the leaders of change were, that the school was supposed to produce. In a miff, he quit and started the Blue Mountains School, which still continues to educate differently, at a very small scale - and arguably, a very small scale is the only way that true education can be imparted.   ______________________________________ On 1/06/10 3:01 AM, Achuta Ramaiah wrote: great ram bu the attraction is still iitjee which sibal wants grounded.  you agree ? achuta _________________________________ From: Jairam Sampath-IITM Date: Tue, 1 Jun 2010 09:36:38 +0530 This movement is excellent.  I will sometime later share my own experiences in smaller towns and government schools in the most backward of regions of India. Our only hope is that the youth coupled with the power of education for the under-privileged will act and clean-up the Indian polity. Kind regards, Jairam __________________________________