Daijiworld Media Network
(With input from Wikpedia and IANS)
Nov 13 : This inspiring story is about 39-year-old Anand Kumar, who, being born in a poor family could not fulfil his dreams, but thought about others and worked towards helping poor students and fulfilling their dreams.
Indeed a selfless service from a humble young man from Bihar who is a brilliant mathematician, but is today recognized as one of the top educationalists in the world !
Several institutions and media houses in the world have hailed his service. Recently the Times Group magazine 'People' featured him as 'People's Hero'.
The magazine usually features celebrities and film stars. This is a rare occasion when a teacher was profiled.
The People magazine feature details how Anand Kumar, working almost alone for over a decade, has helped 263 children from poor families to make it into the prestigious IITs.
Super 30 is an educational programme that was started in Patna, Bihar, under the banner of 'Ramanujan School of Mathematics', by Anand Kumar. Established in 2002, the program selects 30 meritorious and talented candidates each year from economically backward sections of society and trains them for the IIT-JEE, the entrance examination for Indian Institute of Technology (IIT).
In India one who has money can have the best education in the country, barring very few extraordinary students. But Anand Kumar has proved that even the poor can see the steps of IIT, India's highly respected educational institute.
The speciality of this great educationalist is, he single-handedly took 263 poor students from remote areas to IIT !
Anand Kumar was born in Bihar. His father was a post office clerk in Bihar. His father could not afford private schooling for his children, and Anand attended a Hindi medium government school, where he developed his deep interest for Mathematics.
During graduation, Kumar submitted papers on Number Theory, which were published in Mathematical Spectrum and The Mathematical Gazette. Anand secured admission to Cambridge University, but could not attend because of his father's death and his financial condition, despite looking for sponsors in both Patna and Delhi during 1994-1995.
Kumar would work on Mathematics during day time and sell 'papads' in the evenings with his mother, who had started a small business from home to support her family.
He also tutored students in maths to earn extra income. Since Patna University library did not have foreign journals, for his own study, he would travel every weekend on a six-hour train journey to Varanasi, where his younger brother, learning violin under N Rajam, had a hostel room. Thus he would spend Saturday and Sunday at the Central Library, BHU and return to Patna on Monday morning.
In 1992, Kumar began teaching Mathematics. He rented a classroom for Rs 500 a month, and began his own institute, the Ramanujam School of Mathematics (RSM).
Within a span of year, his class grew from two students to thirty-six, and after three years there were almost 500 students enrolled.
Then in early 2000, when a poor student, who couldn't afford the annual admission fee of IIT-JEE came to him seeking coaching, Kumar was motivated to start the Super 30 programme in 2002, for which he is now well-known.
Every year in May, since 2002, the Ramanujan School of Mathematics holds a competitive test to select 30 students for the ‘Super 30’ scheme. Many students appear for the test, and eventually he takes thirty intelligent students from economically backward sections, tutors them, and provides them study materials and lodging for a year.
He prepares them for the Joint Entrance Examination for the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT). His mother, Jayanti Devi, cooks for the students, and his brother Pranav Kumar takes care of the management.
The greatness of the Anand Kumar-led institution is that it never accepts any donations from individuals, corporates or governments, but generates money on its own by running evening classes for intermediate level students.
Apart from 'People' magzine, Discovery channel has presented a documentary on Anand Kumar, and so too a few magazines and newspapers of USA, UK and Japan, all of whom hailed Anand Kumar for his initiative.
His life, his vision and love for education and the poor - inspiring, isn't he?
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