May 24, 2006 :: Super 30 kids

The New Indian Express today reports on a teaching shop run by mathematician Anand Kumar and senior police officer Abhyanand in Patna, Bihar. Every year 30 kids from poor families are chosen, purely for their potential to make it to the IITs. They pointedly avoid asking their caste, and if at all, find out about it only casually. Since poverty is a criteria, they presume many of the kids would be from the backward castes.

The experiment is 3 years old and ADG Abhyanand takes time off from policing to teach physics. In the first year, 18 of the boys got into IITs; in the second year the score went up to 22 and last year it was 26.

Maybe there’s a need for coaching classes on the Super-30 model all over India. That would be true affirmative action by private citizens.