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Just
after the young aspirants for entering the
prestigious IITs got their results this year
last week, a mutiny of a sort started in Patna.
I came to know about it through media.
Super 30 has become a global name and has got a
lot of publicity, because of its missionary
approach. Perhaps, it is also as two of the
founders- Shri Abhayanand, the present AGP,
Bihar and Anand Kumar who was also invited by
IIM-Ahmedabad just in continuity with Laluji and
Nitish Kumar, have become legendary and
celebrity. I also wrote about it time and again.
The best part was the founders taking a holistic
care of the aspirants and arranging lodging too
in Patna besides coaching them. I wish they had
inculcating the good values in the boys also
that caused the problem.
Super-30 claimed 28 of its 30 getting selected
for IITs. And then perhaps another coaching
institutes I-Desire claimed 3 of those 28 from
Super-30 as its own students and got them
facilitated by the CM. It created a tide of
protests first from the founders declaring the
closure of its Super-30, and then from the
students’ community in Patna. I also appealed to
CM to call both the parties and clear out
apprehensions; as to me it appeared as silly and
damaging for the students. Many wrote emotional
letters on Internet sites that smelled with
caste bias. I was shocked and pained too.
After many appeals from far and near including
some from abroad, the founders are ready to
continue with the great affirmative work for the
deserving candidates from deprived categories of
the rural Bihar that they are doing since last
five years. However, I shall like to give some
of my own views.
Why should the Supr-30 feel bad if some of its
own students get allured to attend some other
coaching institute too? This has become a common
practice among the students. Out of sheer lack
of confidence to get into IITs anyhow, they are
resorting to many practices that I feel wrong. I
came across a case where the boy left his good
school in class XII as it required a minimum
attendance for appearing in final examinations,
and joined an ordinary school to go to Kota the
coaching city for preparing for the IIT entrance
examinations. As he has not been selected, he
shall be wasting one year more with Kota
coaching and try again.
Firstly, why should a coaching be necessary? It
was not there at our time, and we were no way
disadvantaged. Can’t IITs invent an innovative
way of examining the students that can’t be
facilitated by coaching centers?
Why can’t IITs depend on the results from the
boards as BITS, Pilani does? Is the performance
of BITS any way inferior? I feel the coaching
institutes are as superfluous as the newly
introduced finishing schools for the graduate
engineers. It is certainly making many
entrepreneurs rich. It is no way adding any
creativity among the students that are the basic
necessity of a good education.
However back to the main story, why should
Super-30 wish to make itself monopolistic? How
does it matter if some hundreds of institutes
such as Super-30 come up in Patna?
I read reports about I-Desire in both the
national dailies of New Delhi. It is a good
endeavour if it is correctly report.
Now, IITians help poor crack IIT-JEE. A poor
waiter in Patna has become a celebrity of sorts
after his son cracked the IIT entrance exam this
year. The overjoyed man gives full credit to
I-Desire - a small group of former IITians in
Bihar who coach underprivileged kids and provide
them study material.
It appears the institute wishes to emulate
Super-30. I don’t find any harm in that.
Let Super-30 be emulated in each district
headquarters of Bihar.
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Comments: |
This has reference to the statement
on BITS admission process mentioned
in the article.
Thanks for applauding the
Board-result based admission process
that was being adopted till the year
2004.
Since 2005, BITS Pilani has been
admitting students for its Pilani
and Goa campuses through a unique
computer-based online admission
test, first of its kind in India
offered over a period of 4 weeks in
16 centres across the country.
Candidates can choose dates and
centres. The number of applicants
has been on the increase and this
year it's 88000 (for 1400 seats -
800 in Pilani and 600 in Goa).
Prof. Meenakshi Raman
Chief, Publications and Media
Relations Unit
Group Leader, Languages Group
Warden, Meera Bhawan
BITS, Pilani-333031, Rajasthan,
India
Phone: 01596-245073 (265)
June 11, 2007
I tend to agree with the observation
made in this article...Why the
Super-30 should feel monopolistic?
It seems they are more for the
publicity than to really stand for
the cause. We never heard of
I-DESIRE till the tantrums made by
Super-30 came into news. I have been
reading all the letters written in
support of Super-30 and I feel it
has only helped them satisfy their
own ego that they are the messiah of
poor students and the whole world is
supporting them. In this process the
statement made by I-DESIRE has
really made the public think that
who is doing a social service and
who is doing social service for
publicity and applaud.
I feel I-DESIRE seems to be a silent
effort with keeping themselves in
low profile while Super-30 is now
more publicity oriented and cannot
see the success of others. The whole
drama put up by Sri Abhyanand and
his friend should win them an OSCAR
award. - R. K. Srivastava -
June 12, 2007
The writer of this article concludes
with the following questions and
comments:
1) "why should Super-30 wish to make
itself monopolistic ?"
2) "How does it matter if some
hundreds of institutes such as
Super-30 come up in Patna?"
3) "It appears the institute wishes
to emulate Super-30. I don't find
any harm in that."
4) "Let Super-30 be emulated in each
district headquarters of Bihar."
As I see it, the writer is
completely missing out the focus.
The reason of quarrel is that,
I-Desire is claiming 3 students of
Super-30. The writer didn't provide
any insight or understanding or
facts affirming the claim of either.
If I-Desire is claiming the students
without actually training them, then
this is an unethical practice and I
would very much understand the
protest of Super-30. (The article,
simply tries to sympathise with
I-Desire, without presenting facts).
Practices, like informally bribing
the students with some perks or
rewards, to have there results, are
not uncommon in this business. And
since we know that the students in
super-30 belong to the economically
deprived classes, such offers might
be more of compulsion rather than
temptation. (I am just throwing
light on a possibility).
Some off-the-focus comments:
The writer also asks many questions
regarding coaching system in general
that expresses his lack of
understanding of the scenario:
1) Firstly, why should a coaching be
necessary? It was not there at our
time, and we were no way
disadvantaged.
Ans) You cannot compare scenario of
your days, to now. I am sure you
never faced a competition with
selection ratios like 1/100 (because
there were no such competitions).
Today coaching is necessary because
there is a remarkable difference
between mathematics standards of
class 12 board, and of competitions
like JEE.
2) Why can't IITs depend on the
results from the boards as BITS,
Pilani does?
Ans) Because the results of board
are not always satisfactory, and by
no means they are any index of the
depth of a students knowledge and
understanding of Mathematics,
Physics of Chemistry (core science
subjects). To secure a good
percentage in Boards all you need to
do is to have good handwriting, and
symbolically memorize a few
stereo-type books (that have very
low focus on concepts).
3) Is the performance of BITS any
way inferior?
Ans) Of course yes, the performance
of BITS Pilani is inferior. For
verifying my statement, use the
following as comparison indices:
a) Number of PHD scholarships
secured by students in the best
universities of world.
b) Number of research publications
secured in any academic year.
c) Number and Pay-scale of
technology and industry jobs offered
in campuses.
I assure you that there lies a
difference in scales in performance
of IITs as against BITS Pilani. -
Ritesh Kumar Sinha, Final Year
Student, Computer Sciecnce, IIT-Bombay
- June 19, 2007 |
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