Super 50: A Class Apart

The experiment, Una Super 50, containing all these components has started showing excellent results: first, five students got selected for National Institute of Technology (NIT), Hamirpur, last year and now it recently got an award —SKOCH Award for Silver Category in District Administration.

Super 50 rings a bell? Yes, it’s a lot like Anand Kumar’s — and Hrithik Roshan’s —Super 30. Apart from the numerical difference, Super 50 is run by the district administration unlike Super 30.

Kanchan, 17, got so much excited that she watched Super 30 thrice after she was told about Anand’s genius and gesture at the launch of Super 50, a two-year coaching programme, in 2019. “When I first saw the movie, I got inspired. Then, during the course and during ups and downs, I watched it twice again for more inspiration,” she says.

Now Kanchan herself has become an inspiration. Eldest among three siblings, she has enrolled for electronics and communication engineering at NIT, Hamirpur. “Yeh coaching hamare knowledge se bahar thi. Aamdani itani nahin hai ki hum yeh karwa sakate. Main poore zila prashasan ka shukriya dil se ada karati hoon. Ab hum apani zameen bech denge ya study loan lenge, par isse padhayenge zaroor (This coaching was beyond our knowledge. We could not have afforded it because our income is not that much. I thank the entire district administration from the core of my heart. Now we will either sell our land or take study loan but make sure that she completes her studies),” says Kanchan’s mother Sudesh Kumari, a housewife whose younger daughters are aged seven and four. Her husband Shiv Kumar is a hair dresser and runs Shiva Salon at Una. The family resides at Malahat, a nearby village.

Shanu Kumari, 17, is a bookworm. Studies are part of her hobbies as well. The last movie she watched was 3 Idiots. While she has seen Super 30 in snatches, her mother Savita Devi has watched it in full, and these days she is full of joy. “Iske dakhile par aas-paas ke gaonon se bhi badhaiyan aayeen. Main bahut khush hoon. Humne to isse BSc karwani thi aur haath peele kar dene the (On her admission, congratulations poured in from the villages close by. I am very happy. We would have supported her studies up to BSc and married her off),” says Savita. A homemaker, she has a younger son who studies in class 12. Her husband runs a hotel in Rajasthan. The family lives at Budhan village, 50 km from Una.

Distance was becoming a problem, so Shanu shifted to her Bua’s place at Takka village to attend the coaching classes at Una —and learn a few lessons of life. “After doing this coaching, I have realised what hard work means,” she says.

As she pursues engineering physics, her family is thinking of applying for a study loan to pay her NIT fee.

Mention Super 30 to Tanvi, 16, and she will cut a sorry figure. She does not know much about it — neither about the coaching programme nor about the movie. What she does know is her Super 50 experience has been really super as she got new books — reading books, travelling and photography are her hobbies. Both her parents — both are government teachers — too have a good experience of Super 50. “This is coaching at doorstep. Yeh bahut achchha kadam hai. Gaonwale bachchon ke liye badhiya hai (This is a very good step, especially for children in villages),” says her father Charan Das.

Since Tanvi did not get the stream of her choice — she got engineering physics — at NIT, Hamirpur, she joined University Institute of Technology at Himachal Pradesh University.

Cricket and cinema are common to Swastik Sharma, 17, and Sidhant Sadyal, 18 —they both have watched Super 30. While the former is doing civil engineering, the latter is pursuing mechanical engineering. Their fathers work in private companies and their mothers are homemakers. Swastik’s father says he was expecting his son to get admission to IIT, whereas Sidhant regrets he could not qualify for IIT. “Mera beta to padhane mein bahut tez hai (My son is very good at studies). Had Covid not impacted the classroom learning, he would have done better,” says Swastik’s proud father Arun Kumar Sharma. “Super 50 bahut achchhi muhim hai. Bahar se coaching lene par Rs 2.5-3 lakh lagate. Covid mein mushkil hoti kyonki Kota, Chandigarh ya Delhi bhejana padata (Super 50 is a good campaign. Private coaching would have cost us Rs 2.5-3 lakh. We would have faced problems if we had to send him to Kota, Chandigarh or Delhi during Covid).” Arun himself contracted Covid during the third wave. The family resides at Marwari village and owns two cows.

Apart from the gentleman’s game, Sidhant is into online gaming and loves to play badminton. He is quick to point out the similarity between Super 30 and Super 50: free coaching. “Aath-nau hazaar mahine ki salary mein ghar chalana aur bachchon ko coaching dilana bahut mushkil hai. Hum to zila prashasan ke aabhari hain iss coaching ke liye (It is very difficult to run the household and arrange coaching for children with a monthly salary of Rs 8,000-9,000. We are grateful to the district administration for this coaching),” says Sidhant’s mother Anjana Devi. The family lives at Shivpur village.

“Sabse badi baat hai yeh sab sarkari schoolon ke bachche hain aur inhone Covid ke samay mein yeh uplabdhi haasil ki hai (The most important thing is all these children are from government schools and they have achieved this success during the Covid time),” says Rural Development Minister Virender Kanwar. “Our Zila Parishad has been contributing financially to this scheme.”

THE NITTY-GRITTY: Basically, Super 50 employs a hybrid class model. It is meant to groom government school students for engineering and medical competitive exams — JEE (Joint Entrance Examination) and NEET (National Eligibility cum Entrance Test). The hybrid model is an “in-class teaching system, wherein students convene in a smart class at a scheduled time under the supervision of an in-person class coordinator and are taught via an online two-way audio video interactive, instructor-led WebClass (live class)”. In other words, this model combines conventional classroom learning with online teaching in real time.

When this programme was started in July 2019, there was only one centre — BRC Office, Government Senior Secondary School, Una —where students would gather after their normal school hours. Later, two more centres were opened at Government Senior Secondary School, Ambota, and Government Senior Secondary School, Thana Kalan.

The admission to this programme is held on the basis of an entrance exam. This exam is conducted by the District Institute of Education and Training (DIET), which is the nodal agency for the programme. “In 2019, only the entrance exam score was considered. In 2020, 60% marks were given to entrance exam score and 40% to Class 10 performance. In 2021, too, we continued with the same 60:40 pattern,” says Devender Chauhan, principal, DIET, which conducts the entrance test and coordinates with coaching partner EduSquare Labs headquartered in Ludhiana.

There is no quota system; merit is the sole criterion.

In the 2019-21 batch, ADC Amit says, there were only 50 engineering students. The 2020-22 batch consisted of 50 engineering students and 25 medical students. The batch of 2021-23 has 25 students each of engineering and medical stream.

THE FUNDING: In 2019, the district administration formed a society called Socio Culture and Sports Association, Una, which is headed by Deputy Commissioner. Zila Parishad, Una, gave a fund of Rs 20 lakh for the programme and an equivalent amount was obtained from the Temple Trust, Chintpurni. The district administration claims to spend around Rs 31,000 per student per year. For the first two batches, 2019-21 and 2020-22, there was no fee. But, for the 2021-23 batch, the fee structure was modified to 80%:20% — 80% is borne by the district administration and the rest by the student. This pattern was introduced to promote a sense of accountability and ownership among students. DC Raghav claims this 20% is refundable on admission to a professional course.

There is another twist around 20%. “We got requests for enrolling more students in the 2021-23 batch,” says Devender.

The coaching partner happily obliged them. “We waived the 80% fee component for 15 students. Now there are 65 students in this batch,” says Piyush.

THE COVID: The pandemic posed plenty of problems for the students. The entire learning process went online. Somewhere there was no smart phone in a household, somewhere there was a single smart phone for siblings. Sometimes there was insufficient data and sometimes there was a poor Internet connection. Shanu got so pissed off by the online mode that she discontinued the coaching programme for two months. When things improved, she joined back. At Swastik’s village, a telecom company installed a tower on people’s request. That helped improved matters.

DIET too took pains to keep the programme running during lockdowns. “They delivered content at my father’s firm. It was sweet of them,” says Swastik.

Tanvi faced no network issue but she finds offline studies better. Kanchan too likes the offline mode more as it makes her “more punctual with studies”. The online arrangement caused disruption in studies for Shanu, so she is all for offline learning.

But the “online classes saved time” for Swastik while Sidhant says “online mein school ki tension kam ho gayi (the online mode reduced school tension)”.
The administration, on its part, learned from the pandemic and modified the programme. For the 2021-23 batch, they provided the students internet-enabled Samsung tablets with a provision to check their attendance and involvement.

THE FUTURE: Sidhant’s younger brother Ashish Sadyal too has joined the coaching programme. “Hamare bachchon ne hamara haunsala badhaya hai. Ab kuchh bhi mushkil nahin lagata (Our kids have boosted our morale. Now nothing seems impossible),” says their mother Anjana Devi.
The district administration too has been encouraged by the response. “We are going to provide coaching for CLAT (Common Law Admission Test) as well in the next batch,” says DC Raghav, who has a law background.

There is also talk of Super 50 turning into Super 100.

That shows this classroom has room for more students — and more experiments.