Unfettered start

Institutes of Technology itself has come to rest on a vast network of feeder schools. In towns like Kota,there is an entire parastructure of prep schools,volumes of learning material and tutors who rely on years of practical experience to prime diligent teenagers for the IIT-JEE brain-crusher. ASSOCHAM recently pegged the coaching industry at a phenomenal Rs 10,000 crore. Obviously,this apparatus of educational advantage furthers the gap between those who can and those who cant shell out the cash for a year of dedicated IIT-JEE training.

This is what makes Super 30s spectacular success so moving. The Super 30 experiment was started in Bihar by mathematician Anand Kumar and the states additional DGP,Abhyanand,though it later split into different ventures. In their school,they pick 30 disadvantaged kids and provide free coaching,accommodation and food. When it started in 2003,18 students made it past the fearsome IIT-JEE and the haul steadily rose in the following years and in 2008,all 30 of its students cracked the test. This time,all 10 Muslim students from Abhyanands experiment have made it. One of the candidates who dreams of working with the Indian Space Research Organisation is the son of a daily-wager. Between Anand Kumar and Abhyanand,they have made 76 more visible dents in the barriers that keep such young people out of the new economy.