Bihar’s Super 30 in Newsweek list of 4 most innovative schools

PATNA - Bihar’s free coaching centre Super 30, which helps economically backward students crack the Indian Institute of Technology-Joint Entrance Examination (IIT-JEE), has been selected by American magazine Newsweek in the list of four most innovative schools in the world.

Nearly four months after the Time magazine selected Super 30 in the list of the “Best of Asia 2010″, Newsweek in its latest edition included Super 30 in the list of four most innovative schools in the world.

“This is a great recognition, which will not only motivate me, but also the students to perform better. I am happy that my small initiative has brought Bihar on the international map for positive reasons,” Anand Kumar, the institute’s director-cum-founder, told IANS here Saturday.

He said it was really a matter of happiness that Newsweek had included Super 30 in the list of four most innovative schools in the world.

According to Newsweek, the work of Anand Kumar for the underprivileged students is “incredible”.

“With help of educational and moral support from Anand Kumar, underprivileged students study almost 16 hours every day and qualify the entrance test of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). This entrance test is known as the toughest test in India,” reported the magazine.

The Time magazine had described Super 30 as the Best Cram School in its list in May this year.

Every year, around 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 reported in its latest issue.

“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,” it added.

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.

In the last three years, all 30 students of Super 30 have made it to the JEE, drawing worldwide attention. Since 2003, more than 200 students have made it to one of the IITs.

“The project has even won the notice of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who met Kumar in February to hear his plan to launch a national programme for talented rural children. In a country that has struggled to offer those students even basic education, Super 30 is an example of what’s possible when human potential is tapped,” the magazine said.

“Education is their only weapon to rid themselves of poverty and social exploitation,” the Time magazine quoted Kumar as saying.

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.