Twenty-four students from underprivileged sections, of the total 30, have this time made it to the IIT-JEE from the 'Super-30' founded by mathematics wizard Anand Kumar.
With this the total number of Super 30 students, having qualified for the IIT-JEE in the last nine years, have gone upto 236, Kumar told PTI today.
Be it the ward of a roadside vendor, mobile mechanic, marginal farmer or truck driver and Group IV employee, all managed to successfully crack the IIT-JEE barrier, under the expert guidance of Anand and his dedicated team.
The fabled Super 30 is an institution, having featured in different prominent world publications as the unique Indian experiment, where Anand Kumar grooms 30 poor but talented students after screening for nearly one year with free coaching, accomodation and food. Not taking any financial help from the government or any organisation, Anand supports Super 30 from what he earns from his tuition centre.
For Kanwar Barister Singh from village Gairwar in Jaunpur, it was his second attempt at the IIT-JEE.
Away from his village for nearly a year, he was overwhelmed by emotions when he saw his result on the computer monitor at Anand’s house in a modest locality of Meethapur in Patna.
And there are many like Kanwar with some from Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, but all having taken their examination from Patna.
"We were lucky to be here and we did not want to waste much time. It was like a family, where we the 30 students ate, slept and studied together," said Ayush Agrawal, whose father died two years ago. Among others from Bihar, basking in the IIT-JEE glory, courtesy Super30, are Abhay Kumar from East Champaran, whose father is a clerk in an un-aided school.
He credited the atmosphere at Super 30 and the innovative teaching style of Kumar which he will not forget. "I and my sister used to give tuition to small students to sustain the family, before I got selected for Super 30. My mother must be happier than me," he said. After engineering, Kumar plans to sit for the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) to help poor students like him.
A satisfied Anand said "the smiles on their faces is my biggest award. But I feel bad for the six who could not crack the barrier." Incidentally, everytime in the past three years all the 30 students of a single batch had qualified for the IIT-JEE.
The innovative Super-30 experiment has already got wide coverage in the global media with Time and Newsweek magazines having run extensive features as well as publications from China, France and Japan.