Education Minister of Tripura Ratan Lal Nath. Express Photo by Abhisek Saha. Education Minister of Tripura Ratan Lal Nath. Express Photo by Abhisek Saha.

Tripura’s BJP-IPFT government has announced a new educational scheme – ‘Super 30’ with effect from the 2020-21 academic year to fund coaching fees of school students from the science stream in Kota-based entrance coaching centres every year. The scheme will train them to crack engineering and medical entrance examinations, such as JEE or NEET.

In a press conference at the state secretariat late evening on Wednesday, Education Minister Ratan Lal Nath stated, “Education is the topmost priority sector of our government. This new scheme will fund the top 30 students of science stream to get coaching at Kota-based entrance coaching centres of their preference for JEE and NEET every year. Beneficiaries would be selected with a proportionate quota in SC, ST categories as per state reservation rules.”

As per Tripura Board of Secondary Education (TBSE), 3690 students appeared in science stream in the senior secondary stream this year. While many of them apply in entrance coaching centres, most don’t get their shot due to lack of resources to enroll in the best coaching classes of the country.

India has 546 MBBS colleges with a cumulative count of 72,098 seats, 313 BDS colleges with 26,773 seats, several IITs, NITs and IIITs. Education Minister Nath reasoned that students from Tripura, if provided a level playing field, can score as well as anyone from any part of the country in getting an entry in these colleges.

‘Super 30’ will involve Rs 2.40 lakh coaching fee for every student on an average annually. The project would be started on a pilot basis with an initial financial involvement of Rs 72 lakh in the first year and Rs 1.44 crore in the next year.

Though ‘Super 30’ comes from Anand Kumar’s Ramanujan School of Mathematics based in Patna, the scheme didn’t officially announce any allegiance to that programme.

This year, 27,155 candidates including 13,906 male and 13,249 female students appeared in the state board conducted Higher Secondary exams across 400 schools. Among them, 80.51 per cent students passed, which is slightly higher than 78.62 per cent pass rate from 2018.

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