Super-30 Closes its Door; Hopes of Many Youths Dashed
Patna: June 2, 2007
Additional Director General (ADG) Abhayanand and his partner and math whiz Anand Kumar, at a press conference in Patna on Saturday night, stunned one and all when they announced their decision to shut down Super-30 institute that was helping boys and girls with limited economic means to prepare for IIT entrance tests.
"Our mission has failed. What has transpired in the last couple of days has forced us to rethink about the future of Super-30. Effective immediately, we are shutting down the institute and therefore there would be no admission of the students this year," Abhayanand said to a hushed crowd.
As reported, as the Super-30 was celebrating the success of its 28 of the 30 students who cracked the rigorous IIT-JEE entrance test under the personalized coaching of Abhayanand and Anand Kumar, some successful students claimed they were coached at some other coaching institute.
"As soon as the results came out, several coaching institutes rushed to take credits for the success of these students. While that did not bother us, what really hurt us was that some of our students publicly stated that they were coached at some other institutes and failed to mention the truth," a dejected ADG said.
"We cannot go on telling the world what the truth is. Besides, tomorrow they could question the very motive of our Super-30 project. Before that happens, we have decided to fold our operation and go our separate ways," he further said.
The ADG, while stating he did not blame anyone for the latest turn of events, he said he was very much hurt by false claims made by some of his students.
"We kept them for seven months, provided them everything they needed, and made sure they were ready to take on the IIT entrance test. Then they go on a public platform with other coaching institute officials claiming they were coached by them. This means we have failed in our mission," Abhayanand said.
An equally dejected Anand Kumar said the students had undoubtedly been misled by other coaching institute owners. Daring the owners of I-Desire and Genius-40 institutes, two of the many Super-30 copycats, to make public all records pertaining to the students who claimed to have been coached at their institutes.
Super-30, since its formation in 2002 by Abhayanand and Anand Kumar with the goal to prepare 30 students with limited economic means and opportunities in Bihar, had been consistently sending students to the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) with its highly-specialized, focused training structure.
In 2003, 18 of the 30 selected students were admitted in the IIT, in 2004 that number rose to 22, 26 in 2005, and 28 in 2006 and 2007.
The success of the Super-30 had been highlighted in media across the world and a Japanese filmmaking company recently made a documentary film to show what a little dedication and determination could do for many children who were not so fortunate to be born with silver spoons in their mouths.
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