Bihar’s Super 30 hits international headlines

PATNA - With visits from foreign media teams and extensive features written about it, Bihar’s free coaching centre Super 30, all of whose students have cracked the Indian Institute of Technology-Joint Entrance Examination (IIT-JEE) for the third consecutive year, has drawn the attention of the international media.

The institute selects talented students from poor families and provides them with free coaching, food and accommodation.

Anand Kumar, the institute’s director-cum-founder, told IANS that the latest to cover the school are the Chinese and French media.

“A team from France’s official TV Channel, French 24, came to Patna Monday to cover Super 30 and its students. The team shot extensively at different locations all day,” he said Tuesday.

China’a number one news agency Xinhua carried a detailed story on Super 30 and how Kumar and his team shapes students.

Rhythm Monthly, a popular Chinese magazine, also did an extensive feature on Super 30. Its team recently visited the institute and Kumar’s home. Its latest issue has a detailed feature with several photographs of Super 30 hostel, classroom and Kumar’s profile.

Kumar said he was happy that Super 30 was getting international coverage for its work.

He runs the Ramanuja School of Mathematics in Patna, some profit of which he uses to run Super 30.

Last month, the institute was selected by the Time magazine in the list of the Best of Asia 2010. It was described as the Best Cram School in its list.

Every year, about 230,000 students take the exam for a seat in the IITs but only 5,000 grab it.

“Last year, 30 of them came from one coaching centre in Patna, capital of the impoverished north Indian state of Bihar. That may not seem like many, but for the Super 30 centre it’s a pass rate of 100 percent,” the magazine said in its latest issue.

Earlier, Discovery Channel had made a one-hour documentary on Super 30.

Two of Japan’s frontline channels also made films on Kumar and his pioneering initiative. One of the films on Super 30, made by British producer Christopher Mitchell, also won the Viewers’ Choice Award at a film festival in Los Angeles.

Kumar, who himself missed a chance to study at Cambridge because he didn’t have enough money, gives full scholarships, including room and travel, to every batch of 30 students. They pass a competitive test just to get into Super 30, and then commit themselves to a year of 16-hour study each day.

The institute was started by Kumar along with Bihar’s Additional Director-General of Police Abhayanand in 2002 in Patna. But two years ago, Abhayanand dissociated himself from the institute.