20 students crack IIT from tribal belt of Madhya Pradesh

Bhopal: A highly competitive IIT examination is cracked by 20 students from tribal belt of Madhya Pradesh. They were trained under a government “Choo lo aasman programme”, for children from backward villages.

Madhya Pradesh Higher Education Commissioner/Secretary Umakant Umrao said. “Overall 300 students qualified in the mains examination and 21 have been selected in the advance examination.”

RS Parihar, Assistant Commissioner of Tribal Development Department Baitul district said. In this programme students are provided free schooling and coaching by teachers, besides food, at the residential campus. The students are mostly tribals and they come from modest background. Some of them didn’t even have money to reach the examination centres of IIT.

He added each district has 16 smart classrooms and based on the aptitude of students we segregated them. The ones interested in mathematics were trained towards engineering and ones towards biology were taught keeping medicine in mind. He said students from time to time were also taught through video conferencing where they got their doubts cleared by experts.

These schools are spread all over the tribal backward areas of Madhya Pradesh. B Gyaneshwar Patil, Collector of Baitul district said. “We have closely monitored the situation. We connected through technology. We used to ask teachers to send pictures and videos of classroom education daily to check attendance and quality of education being given to the students.”

He added .”It is a very proud moment for us and we are very happy that bright students from backward sections of the society are getting the right exposure and are able to fulfill their dreams.”

Halvant Dhuve, a student of EMRS government school, Baitul said.”My mother is a daily wage labourer and my father passed away when I was very young, qualifying into IIT has been my dream and the kind of education I got from my school with study material and well-equipped laboratories helped me fulfill my dreams,” Halvant secured 999 rank in the advanced examination.

Another student Dheeraj Binjhade from a tribal higher secondary school in Baitul said. “We got very good coaching. We were taught through study material that the government acquired from professional coaching institutes, we had laboratories having the necessary facilities,” Dheeraj secured 1294 rank under SC category.

Umrao said. “The quality of education in the region is very poor because of which the children reach to class eighth and tenth standards.”

Umrao who himself is an IITian said .“We are educating children to prepare them as doctors and engineers. And most of these students come from very poor background, hence, it has been our aim to bring these students to mainstream.”