IIT-JEE: Super-30 founder seeks 3 attempts for poor candidates

Drawing attention to the obvious disparity between poor rural students and their rich urban counterparts, the founder of the super hit 'Super 30' initiative Anand Kumar requested the Prime Minister to offer an additional chance to the less privileged candidates to clear the crucial IIT entrance examination.

Kumar who provides free coaching to rural youths wanted these students, who are normally late starters, to be given three instead of two chances, when he met Dr Manmohan Singh on February 10.

Kumar also told the Prime Minister that the 'Super 30' initiative would increase its student intake from 30 to 60 from the next year onwards. He also added that eligible students from all the states would be made part of the venture. For the past seven years, the advantage of 'Super 30' program has been limited to Bihar and Jharkhand.

Kumar was happy that the Prime Minister promised to look into the matter.

Apart from the issue of providing three chances to rural students, Kumar also suggested that the government should take initiative to commence such coaching programs on the lines of 'Super 30' exclusively for rural students. He wanted the government to identify talented students exclusively from rural base for the purpose.

Kumar was of the opinion that separate syllabus should be introduced for students at the secondary level. While one syllabus is meant for ordinary students, the other one should address their more talented counterparts.
He also wanted the syllabus for the extra ordinary students to be designed in such a way that it provokes thoughts of deeper insight in them at a very early stage itself.

He explained that under the 'Super 30' initiative, thirty students are selected through a screening test every year. The selected students are later trained free of cost to crack the IIT entrance examination.

He was proud that about 182 students, who were training under the Super 30 venture, could come out in flying colors in the IIT entrance exam so far. He also informed that the successful students of 'Super 30' venture would form an alumni association so as to work on rural development.

During his fifteen – minute long meeting with Dr. Singh, Kumar also expressed his desire to start a school, the syllabus of which encourages innovative thinking from the part of students in mathematics and science subjects.
He also gave instructions for the betterment of the mode of IIT entrance examination conduct. He favored the introduction of more conceptual and analytical questions in the examination structure.

He also found it beneficial to the students if the IITs released the extended merit list a few days after the declaration of IIT-JEE results.

This would prevent the coaching centers from misleading the next batch of students by making false claims of success. Kumar also suggested that the IITs should provide marks to the students on the very same day of publishing the results.