Meritorious students who cannot afford specialised coaching for the IIT entrance examination have reason to cheer, and not just those in Bihar.
Super 30, an initiative of Patna's ace mathematician Anand Kumar that has been providing free coaching to 30 bright and needy students every year since 2002, has decided to enhance its intake to 100.
Apart from free coaching, the selected students will be provided free food and lodging in Patna while preparing for the entrance test, Anand told The Telegraph over phone from Balasore in Odisha on Sunday morning.
"I am touring Jharkhand and Odisha to be followed by Delhi, as I intend to take students from these places in addition to Bihar and Uttar Pradesh to prepare them for the IIT entrance examination," Anand said.
According to plans, entrance tests will be conducted at examination centres in Bihar, UP, Jharkhand, Odisha and Delhi to select meritorious students from economically weaker sections of the society.
The first batch of the expanded Super 30 will appear for the IIT entrance examination of 2019.
"The Super 30 would announce the details of the entrance test and examination centres in due course of time," Anand said, adding that apart from merit, the economic condition of the student will also be taken into account while during selection.
Preference will be given to students who need financial assistance the most.
Students who have cleared the Class X examination will be selected so that they get two full two of proper grooming under Anand and his team of teachers. Anand teaches mathematics to Super 30 students.
Since its inception in 2002, the Super 30 has so far coached 450 economically weak students out of which 354 have made it to the IITs; the remaining got through the National Institute of Technology.
All 30 students of the coaching centre cleared the IIT entrance test this year, the results of which were declared earlier this month.
Anand does not take any donation to run the Super 30 and given the fact that his load is going to increase because of the enhanced student intake, the mathematician has also planned a venture to mobilise funds for the initiative.
"I am going to launch online mathematics classes from October in which students would be charged Rs 2 per class," Anand said. "On an average, a student would require around 100 online classes to prepare for the IIT entrance. So, it would cost around Rs 200 per student. I hope that a large number of students who can afford to pay this little sum would join my classes and the funds mobilised through the initiative would be used to meet the expenses for the 100 students who would be mentored at the Super 30."
He added that a large number of people, who have technical expertise to create platforms to conduct online classes, have volunteered to provide free support to the initiative.
"God willing, I would be able to meet the new challenges successfully and would continue to strive for enhancing the base of Super 30 so that it could help maximum number of meritorious students who fail to get proper coaching for IIT entrance examination because of economic constraints," Anand said.
