Monday 25 May 2009
All of Bihar's Super 30 crack IIT entrance test
"Everyone is in a celebratory mood. We distributed lots of sweets," said Nagendra Ram, a Super 30 student.
The institute selects talented students from poor families and provides them with free coaching, food and accommodation so that they can focus on passing the IIT-JEE exam.
"Hard work, proper guidance and supervision are the secrets of our success," Anand Kumar, director of Super 30, told IANS.
Santosh Kumar, another Super 30 student, said the facilities and encouragement from the faculty made it possible for him to crack the tough exam.
In 2003, the first year of the institute, 18 students made it to the prestigious IITs. The number rose to 22 in 2004 and 26 in 2005. In 2007 and 2006, 28 students made it through ITT-JEE.
"We were sure of positive results as we teach them to eat, sleep, walk and talk only IIT," reiterated Anand.
He said the institute is supported by the income generated from his Ramanujam School of Mathematics, which has students who can afford to pay fees.
Super 30 was started by Anand along with Bihar's Additional Director General of Police Abhyanand. But last year Abhyanand dissociated himself from the institute.
The success story of Super 30 was telecast by the Discovery Channel in March this year.
"Super 30 is an amazing initiative and it needs to be taken to maximum people around the globe," said Christopher Mitchell, whose film for Discovery also bagged the Audience Choice Award at the sixth Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles.
Two years ago, Norika Fujiwara, a former Japanese beauty queen and actress, made a documentary film on Super 30 for its innovative and successful attempt to send poor children to India's top engineering colleges.link
Monday 16 March 2009
Discovery Channel to telecast film on Bihar's Super 30
The success story of a Bihar-based coaching institute will be telecast by Discovery Channel this weekend, showing how its underprivileged and marginalised students make their way to India's premier Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT).
"The Discovery Channel would telecast the inspiring story of Super 30 Sunday afternoon and March 21 and 29. This is the first time Discovery has chosen something positive from Bihar for telecast," said Anand Kumar, who runs the institute, called Super 30.
Super 30 selects a group of 30 IIT aspirants from poor and marginalised families and provides free coaching, food and accommodation. Last year all the students of Super 30 passed the highly competitive IIT entrance exam.
"It was the first time that Super 30 achieved 100 percent success. The success of Super 30 lies in hard work and proper guidance for achieving excellent result," Kumar said.
An hour-long documentary, produced by Veronica Hall and directed by Christopher Mitchell, captured all aspects of the mission started by mathematician Anand Kumar seven years ago. The film, shot over a year, shows how the students develop confidence in themselves despite their impoverished backgrounds.
"It is a very inspiring story which the people would certainly like to see and know. This is the reason Discovery decided to show a one-hour documentary on the successful experiment of Anand, which has shaped many lives," said Rajiv Bakshi of the Discovery Channel.
Director of the film Christopher Mitchell said the film had evoked tremendous response.
"Super 30 is an amazing initiative and it needs to be taken to maximum people around the globe," said Mitchell, whose film also bagged the Audience Choice Award at the sixth Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles.link