First-Gen schoolers crack IIT - JEE

HYDERABAD: Yet again this year, the state celebrated bagging a lion’s share of the top ranks (four out of ten) in the IIT-JEE, but it was the performance of a school catering to first-generation learners from disadvantaged sections that warmed hearts all around.Of the 52 students who sat for the exam from Andhra Pradesh Social Welfare Residential (APSWR) Junior College near Hyderabad, 18 qualified in the highly competitive examination. Many of them are the first members of their families to go to school.Famed IIT tutor Chukka Ramaiah put their success in perspective, "Corporate colleges tend to lure the meritorious students anyway and they teach them by rote. Rural students on the other hand are an untapped source of potential.”For several years, AP’s success in the IIT-JEE has been par for the course. The state sent 50,000 students to the exam this year -- about 10 per cent of the total -- and they returned with nearly 4,500 ranks, 1,200 of them in the open category. Top ranks 4, 5, 7 and 9 all went to AP candidates, and the corporates did the usual cracker-bursting to celebrate their success.However, the success of the APSWR Junior College, a government-run institution without the trappings of the much-vaunted cram schools, was the difference in the IIT story this year. Their parents were rather bemused by the feat wrought by their children. “I know little about IIT. But I am happy beyond bounds that my daughter has done me proud,” said Harishankar, a Warangal auto-rickshaw driver, whose daughter S Lavanya took the all-India rank of 2072 in the SC list. “I pushed my father to send me to this institute. The corporate colleges offered to reimburse my fee and coach me for free after my SSC results but I decided to come here,” said the proud girl.The best rank achieved by students of APSWR was 303, bagged by D John Surya, but the sheer weight of the handicap they overcame is staggering. Invited to facilitate these students, Ramaiah stressed the fact that producing achievers from marginalized sections is the real challenge to society.