When it comes to the business of education, everyone loves a good deal. So I was intrigued when I read of Super 30. It was very different from the stories that I had read about ‘serving the community’ or ‘giving back to society’. A lot of philanthropy these days, especially of the corporate kind, is motivated by a desire to make a name for oneself. In the case of individuals it could be just an ego trip. For social service organisations the reward often is a column-inch space in newspapers or 30 seconds on television.
Super 30 is an innovative educational programme run by the Ramanujan School of Mathematics in Patna with an aim to create technocrats out of 30 meritorious students from among the economically backward sections of society. The school helps these children get into the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), the dream destination for many students even from the cream of society. It provides free tuition, board and lodging to these students who are handpicked on the basis of their talent, family background and education. This year, 27 of the 30 cleared the exam. That is a giant leap from 18 in 2003, when it all began.
Ramanujan School, named after the great mathematician, is the brainchild of Anand Kumar, who, despite his academic excellence, could not pursue a higher education in Cambridge just because he did not have the means to do so. Knowing what it is to be left out in the race, he now decided to train a group of students for various competitive examinations.
Anand’s funds for Super 30 come from the nominal fee (compared with that in other coaching centres) he charges other students who join his academy. His institution now figures in the list of innovative schools in the world. What strikes you as you browse through his website is the notification in bold, NO DONATION PLEASE.
In this, I can’t but help wonder if Anand Kumar is not living the Good News. Had he not welcomed the Super 30, a good many of them would have had wasted lives like flowers that expend their sweetness in the desert air.
Commoditisation of education in India in recent years has increasingly left many bright young students in the lurch. There have been reports about a few students taking the extreme step apparently depressed over their inability to continue their education. Recently, there were news reports in Kerala about a boy who dropped out of medical school as he could not afford to pay his fees. That timely intervention by a few kindly souls helped save the day for him is encouraging, but the larger question is why should the poor be always grateful for the crumbs that fall from the rich man’s table rather than be seated at the board?
It is that time of the year again when parents are willing to invest for their children’s education -- ‘buy’ admissions to various professional colleges in the country. It is also that time of the year when we open our wallets for what we consider a worthy cause -- spend a few rupees on the not-so-privileged for their books, uniforms and umbrellas. “Diaspora philanthropy” too works best now; every year there are a number of notifications in church publications inviting ‘deserving candidates’ for help from our Churches abroad.
Religion plays a big part in making us set apart a portion of our incomes for charity (tithing in Christian parlance). It is hard to tell whether it is out of guilt or out of a feeling that it will serve as a protective shield against hard times that we secretly fear. Or as an investment to reap rich dividends later (as Malachi 3: 10 says, “Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it”). Maybe it is a combination of all these.
Marthomites are never known to be tight-fisted, but what do charities mean to us and why? What are the values that we associate with philanthropy?
“We have the mindset of the benevolent master. Our missions and ministries are always mission ‘for’ and mission ‘to’. We are yet to understand mission as mission ‘of’ or mission ‘with’. Mission and charity always construct the other as our other. It will never help them [the needy] to get out of their wounded psyche and to design their own identity and selfhood,” says my theologian friend.
What can be good news from our Yuvajana Sakhyams for the poor and marginalised students who find themselves in circumstances they have not chosen and are helpless to change? There are no quick-fix solutions when the problem of education is of insufficient funds and inefficient schools and when privatisation of education is as much of a problem as it is a solution.
Years ago, when emotions were stirred more quickly than reason, I was guided into a slum by my seniors in the Yuvajana Sakhyam. It was called beggars’ colony. They gave them free tuition and conducted medical camps and catered to their ‘real’ needs than the needs we ‘felt’ they had. I reckon it was worth much more than the ‘educational kits’ we provided in our later years and filled the annual reports with those figures.
P.S.:
Anand Kumar’s mission is worth disseminating in a world where education is just another commodity. GoodNewsIndia (www.goodnewsindia.com) by D.V. Sridharan offers many such inspiring stories “of positive action, steely endeavour and quiet triumphs -- news that is little known”. He stopped updating GoodNewsIndia in 2006, which he had been doing for six years, when he had doubts whether publishing feel-good stories about India by itself was good enough as a service. Then he turned to restoring a piece of land in Chennai. “I no longer retain my early confidence that a sustained economic boom will be like the tide that raises all the boats. ...I further believe that a ‘modern’ economy cannot create true wealth, ... it can be destructive of what wealth we inherited and still possess. The true wealth of any nation is in fertile soil, abundant water, clean air, safe food and its people educated for independent action and free to practice it. I shall go searching for people who are trying to make India wealthy in this manner,” he writes on his website.
I have been told by at least a couple of friends that there are ‘good news’ initiatives by our own churches that are worth spreading. Please watch this space for them. And send me your stories (with photographs) or ideas worth disseminating at burningbushsam@gmail.com.
Super 30 is an innovative educational programme run by the Ramanujan School of Mathematics in Patna with an aim to create technocrats out of 30 meritorious students from among the economically backward sections of society. The school helps these children get into the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), the dream destination for many students even from the cream of society. It provides free tuition, board and lodging to these students who are handpicked on the basis of their talent, family background and education. This year, 27 of the 30 cleared the exam. That is a giant leap from 18 in 2003, when it all began.
Ramanujan School, named after the great mathematician, is the brainchild of Anand Kumar, who, despite his academic excellence, could not pursue a higher education in Cambridge just because he did not have the means to do so. Knowing what it is to be left out in the race, he now decided to train a group of students for various competitive examinations.
Anand’s funds for Super 30 come from the nominal fee (compared with that in other coaching centres) he charges other students who join his academy. His institution now figures in the list of innovative schools in the world. What strikes you as you browse through his website is the notification in bold, NO DONATION PLEASE.
In this, I can’t but help wonder if Anand Kumar is not living the Good News. Had he not welcomed the Super 30, a good many of them would have had wasted lives like flowers that expend their sweetness in the desert air.
Commoditisation of education in India in recent years has increasingly left many bright young students in the lurch. There have been reports about a few students taking the extreme step apparently depressed over their inability to continue their education. Recently, there were news reports in Kerala about a boy who dropped out of medical school as he could not afford to pay his fees. That timely intervention by a few kindly souls helped save the day for him is encouraging, but the larger question is why should the poor be always grateful for the crumbs that fall from the rich man’s table rather than be seated at the board?
It is that time of the year again when parents are willing to invest for their children’s education -- ‘buy’ admissions to various professional colleges in the country. It is also that time of the year when we open our wallets for what we consider a worthy cause -- spend a few rupees on the not-so-privileged for their books, uniforms and umbrellas. “Diaspora philanthropy” too works best now; every year there are a number of notifications in church publications inviting ‘deserving candidates’ for help from our Churches abroad.
Religion plays a big part in making us set apart a portion of our incomes for charity (tithing in Christian parlance). It is hard to tell whether it is out of guilt or out of a feeling that it will serve as a protective shield against hard times that we secretly fear. Or as an investment to reap rich dividends later (as Malachi 3: 10 says, “Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it”). Maybe it is a combination of all these.
Marthomites are never known to be tight-fisted, but what do charities mean to us and why? What are the values that we associate with philanthropy?
“We have the mindset of the benevolent master. Our missions and ministries are always mission ‘for’ and mission ‘to’. We are yet to understand mission as mission ‘of’ or mission ‘with’. Mission and charity always construct the other as our other. It will never help them [the needy] to get out of their wounded psyche and to design their own identity and selfhood,” says my theologian friend.
What can be good news from our Yuvajana Sakhyams for the poor and marginalised students who find themselves in circumstances they have not chosen and are helpless to change? There are no quick-fix solutions when the problem of education is of insufficient funds and inefficient schools and when privatisation of education is as much of a problem as it is a solution.
Years ago, when emotions were stirred more quickly than reason, I was guided into a slum by my seniors in the Yuvajana Sakhyam. It was called beggars’ colony. They gave them free tuition and conducted medical camps and catered to their ‘real’ needs than the needs we ‘felt’ they had. I reckon it was worth much more than the ‘educational kits’ we provided in our later years and filled the annual reports with those figures.
P.S.:
Anand Kumar’s mission is worth disseminating in a world where education is just another commodity. GoodNewsIndia (www.goodnewsindia.com) by D.V. Sridharan offers many such inspiring stories “of positive action, steely endeavour and quiet triumphs -- news that is little known”. He stopped updating GoodNewsIndia in 2006, which he had been doing for six years, when he had doubts whether publishing feel-good stories about India by itself was good enough as a service. Then he turned to restoring a piece of land in Chennai. “I no longer retain my early confidence that a sustained economic boom will be like the tide that raises all the boats. ...I further believe that a ‘modern’ economy cannot create true wealth, ... it can be destructive of what wealth we inherited and still possess. The true wealth of any nation is in fertile soil, abundant water, clean air, safe food and its people educated for independent action and free to practice it. I shall go searching for people who are trying to make India wealthy in this manner,” he writes on his website.
I have been told by at least a couple of friends that there are ‘good news’ initiatives by our own churches that are worth spreading. Please watch this space for them. And send me your stories (with photographs) or ideas worth disseminating at burningbushsam@gmail.com.
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