Life is transient. When we live for the benefit of others, our lives become significant. Each life can have a mission. Anand Kumar is on a quest to assist Bihar’s underprivileged talents in achieving their objectives.
Anand Kumar is an Indian mathematics teacher and columnist for various national and international journals and magazines. He is known for his Super 30 program. Kumar has gained accolades nationally and internationally for his initiative to run a coaching institute for underprivileged students. He was honoured by the Government of India with Padma Shri for his work in education and literature in recognition of his contribution to the upliftment of impoverished children in 2023.
Family And Education
Anand was born into a middle-class family in Patna, Bihar. He was the elder son of a housewife and postal employee. Anand attended a government school with a Hindi-language curriculum. He first aspired to be a scientist, but on his father’s suggestion, he changed his direction to mathematics. He attended Patna University to earn his degree in mathematics after finishing school.
A Genius In Mathematics
Anand contributed papers on number theory for publication in “Mathematical Spectrum” during his graduate studies. Despite being admitted to the University of Cambridge, he was unable to attend due to his father’s death and poor finances.
Anand Papad
After the death of her husband, Jayanti Devi made papad for household expenses. Anand studied during the day and sold pappad at night. His father’s words of inspiration that striving is always better than compromise were always in his mind. He also taught maths to students to earn extra money.
Ramanujan School of Mathematics
Anand established his math coaching facility in 1992. Within a year, his class had grown from two children to 36, and three years later, there were nearly 500 students enrolled.
Super 30
In 2002, a poor boy approached Anand Kumar for IIT-JEE coaching. He said he would pay the fee after harvesting the tubers in the field. Thus, Anand thought of teaching talented students from poor backgrounds. Inspired by this incident, Anand started offering free IIT coaching. A batch of 30 brilliant students was selected and named Super 30.
Since then, his institute has conducted a competitive exam to select 30 low-income students for the Super 30 program, where he will tutor them, provide study materials and cover their housing expenses for free during the program.
Amazing Results
In the first year, 18 people appeared for the exam. The next year it rose to 22, and in 2008 all 30 students passed the JEE exams, fulfilling his unfulfilled dream of going to Cambridge. The majority of students succeed in getting admission to reputed universities like IITs. Anand refused financial support from local, national and international governments and corporate organisations as he wanted to run Super 30 on his own.
Future Plans
He planned to expand the number of students from 30 to 100 across the country. According to Anand Kumar, a teacher instils confidence in his students. His art is to make them confident to accomplish something great in life. Nothing makes a teacher happier than seeing his students attain great success.
Honours
Super 30 was the subject of an hour-long programme that Discovery Channel aired in March 2009. In BBC programmes, Kumar has been highlighted. He has discussed his experiences at several top-tier institutions such as the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, several IITs, the University of British Columbia, Tokyo University, and Stanford University. For his support in assisting underprivileged students in clearing the IIT-JEE by offering them free coaching, he was included in the Limca Book of Records (2009). Rashad Hussain, a special representative for American President Barack Obama, praised Super 30 and called it the nation’s “best” institute.
In July 2010, the Institute for Research and Documentation in Social Sciences (IRDS) presented Kumar with the S. Ramanujan Award for 2010. In November 2010, Kumar received the highest honour from the Bihar government, the “Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad Shiksha Puraskar.” The “Rashtriya Bal Kalyan Award” was given to Kumar by Ram Nath Kovind, the president of India. The Foundation For Excellence in Education (FFE) presented Anand Kumar with the “Education Excellence Award 2019” at a ceremony in San Jose, California. Anand Kumar received the Maharishi Ved Vyas Award from Madhya Pradesh Government for extraordinary contribution to education, Bharat Ganit Ratna Award, and was conferred with an Honorary Doctorate of Science (DSc) by Karpagam University, Coimbatore.
Biography
Canadian psychiatrist Biju Mathew wrote the biography of Anand Kumar in association with journalist Arun Kumar. It was published in English and Hindi by Penguin Random House and Prabhat Prakashan, respectively. The Bihar chief minister, Nitish Kumar, published his biography in June 2016 and praised his selfless endeavour by claiming that he had “come to represent Bihar.”
To The Bigscreen
Amitabh Bachchan received assistance from Kumar as he prepared for his role in the movie Aarakshan. Based on his life and career, Bollywood director Vikas Bahl has directed a film titled “Super 30”, with Hrithik Roshan as Anand Kumar.
Anand Kumar, a prodigy in mathematics, lost many opportunities in life because of financial problems. When he started teaching, his attention strikes to the financially suffering brilliant students, and thus he initiated coaching for them under the name “Super 30.” Today, a lot of students completed their objectives under his guidance. He also offers chances for students across the country to compete in their life’s race. By providing guidance and education to the needy, he is finding solutions to the serious threats of the world. Around 500 students from the institute have become eligible for admission to IITs during the last 16 years. As a teacher, he encourages his students to achieve their goals and is happy to see their progress.