NEW DELHI: Students studying in Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, special schools funded by the Centre for underprivileged children in rural areas, are busy writing a success story, quietly.
A total of 4,360 students of Navodaya Vidyalaya have qualified for JEE -Advanced this year as against 3653 students last year, registering a significant 22 per cent increase. Most of these students belong to four southern states (except for Tamil Nadu which does not have these schools), apart from Odisha, Bihar and West Bengal.
The JEE-Main, is a test conducted by the CBSE for admission to the NITs, IIITs and various other engineering colleges and only those who qualify it are eligible to appear for JEE –Advanced which is the entrance test for admission into the prestigious IITs.
“As 37 per cent of all our students who appeared in the exam this year have succeeded, it’s a remarkable feat as no other group of schools has shown such results,” Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti commissioner B K Singh told Express.
Singh said that three factors, motivation of students, strong support and hard work by teachers, NGOs and government emphasis on quality education were responsible for the significant achievement.
As about 1200 students belonging to this group had qualified for the prestigious IITs last year, Singh hopes this number to go up to 1800-2000 this year.
Ramachandra, joint commissioner (academic) of the NVS said that the fact that these schools are residential, helps establish a stronger discipline among students. “As they belong to impoverished families and rural areas, these students have fire in their bellies and most are determined to change their fortunes,” he said.
There are 625 NVs in the country, under the NVS, which have about 2.6 lakh students, mostly from poor families who get admission following a competitive tests. More than 70 per cent of these students are either from SC/ST or OBC classes and general students comprise the rest.
A NITI Aayog survey done last year on these students showed that family income of about 78 per cent of the students was less than Rs 1 lakh a year.
Out of 4360 students who have qualified JEE- Main, 444 students were trained with special coaching at several centres such as Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Allahabad and Pune among others, with the help of NVS alumni network and NGOs. NVS Alumni connect has also been established, through which the alumni are encouraged to support and hand hold the students of NVS, Singh added.
In a tweet Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar, too, congratulated the successful candidates on Thursday saying that “this is also a testimony of govt's focus on quality education.”