Helping marginalised kids go to university

I met Ningamma when I was teaching students at the government school in Chikkabidarakallu. I prepared her and 20 other students to sit for the 8th Standard National Means cum Merit Scholarship (NMMS) exam back in November 2020. 

Ningamma passed the exam with flying colours, scoring 107 out of 180 – the highest of all the pupils who sat the exam in the district. 

But then the pandemic struck. 

Ningamma went back to her village. 

Ningamma is from Nelagadaranahalli, a peri-urban village on the northern outskirts of Bangalore.  Most of the women who live there are garment workers. They earn about Rs 9,000 a month out of which they pay around Rs 2,000 for housing. Many migrated to greater Bangalore from rural areas and their children attend government schools. 

I was keen to continue teaching maths to Ningamma and the others as I could see they were students who had potential. I reached out to all of them, but only Ningamma showed interest. 

After some initial hitches, I began teaching her 8th Standard maths even though she had moved on to the 9th Standard.  She enjoyed the online classes that we were doing. 

Roping in friends to help teach bright kids

Soon I asked three of my friends who were highly educated and retired, like me, to also teach her. They kindly accepted my request and started teaching too.

We’re all passionate about education. 

We prefer “conceptual learning” that involves teaching using concepts rather than employing the more traditional method of asking students to memorise isolated facts, methods and formulas. 

We also used maths and science NCERT Exemplar books in our teaching. These books are one notch above the textbooks customarily used. We also encouraged students to sit for the National Talent Search Examination (NTSE) and provided them with NTSE guides, which are another notch above the NCERT Exemplar book. 

The students were also provided with laptops and we enrolled Ningamma for private tuition for which we paid.

What were the results of tutoring Ningamma? 

Ningamma scored 616 marks out of 620 in the final 10th exam! 

That was close to 99 percent. At the state level, it was the sixth rank group.

You’re possibly asking now, “What happened next?” Well, there was no NTSE exam in 2022. Had there been, Ningamma would have passed.

In the state of Karnataka, 450 students clear the NTSE I stage annually. Of these 395 are from high-tech private schools. Just 15 students who are from government schools pass the exam.

Ningamma is IIT material. But we will have to wait for two years to be proved right. 

Bright students in gov’t schools overlooked

The government system has some very talented students with high potential – students who would benefit from a higher-level teaching and then do very well.

But the system can only cater to their educational needs in a limited way. It cannot provide education at the level these students require. 

These students should be encouraged to sit competitive exams like the NTSE and be provided with learning facilities.

That is why I came up with a plan, with the help of my friends, for identifying highly talented students in government schools across the state and motivating them to undertake deeper, “conceptual-level” studies. 

A plan to identify and tutor talented students 

These students should be encouraged to sit competitive exams like the NTSE and be provided with learning facilities. They should use the NCERT Exemplar and NTSE books and be coached by good teachers. 

In two years, these students would be Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) material and many of the NTSE pass-outs would be from government schools.

How are talented students identified?

We examined the results of the 2021 NMMS. Some 4,000 students had passed. Among those, 400 students had scored  100 and above. We obtained the addresses of the schools of these 400 students. We wrote a letter to the heads of these schools. In total, we wrote 300 letters.

And yes, the letters did reach the students, thanks to the school heads.  

Sixty students responded, saying they were interested in preparing for the NTSE and asked for extra coaching. Our next batch was ready.

In September 2021, we started online classes for this group of students. This was the second batch that we were teaching after Ningamma. All students are provided with the NCERT Exemplar book and NTSE guide book.

We’ve been teaching them for 10 months. 

Only six of the sixty students have stayed with us and this is sad. 

We just didn’t have sufficient time and energy to connect with all of them, understand the academic difficulties they were encountering and keep them studying with us.

But with those six who have continued learning with us, we have helped them complete their 8th and 9th Standards. Now they are in 10th Standard.  We are a quarter through the year and they will write their exam in March.

We have assessed the students and believe each will score 95% or above in the 10th Standard Exam in 2023, will pass the NTSE and will crack the Joint Entrance Examination (for admission to engineering colleges) and most likely qualify for IIT in 2025

These are NOT mere hopes. These are our assessments. 

Now on third batch of tutoring talented students

Enthused by the progress we had made, we looked at the 2022 NMMS results. We got a list of 400 students who passed the NMMS with marks above 100. We wrote to each of them, around 300 letters in total.

They love knowledge, are disciplined and are supported by their families.

Nearly 70 students replied. 

Of these, about 25 students are very consistent and passionate about their studies. 

We could have retained more but that would require greater effort and more personal contact, which we could not provide at this point. 

These 20-plus students are excellent academically. They love knowledge, are disciplined and are supported by their families. 

The classes began on June 10th of this year and we’re committed to continuing them until next March. 

We’re sure we can get nearly 10 of the 25 to crack the IIT exam. 

But we will know for certain in 2026.

As for Ningamma, we’re delighted she has obtained a seat at the Deeksha College in Tumakuru where she is studying for her 11th and 12th standard. 

Her entrance exam scores meant she obtained a scholarship, getting free tuition and  hostel accommodation, which normally costs students 5 lakhs for two years.

She is the campus topper and I am confident she will also get into IIT in two years. 

In fact I am hopeful that in three years we will reach the “SUPER 10” – helping ten students pass the IIT exams. 

Then we won’t stop until we reach the SUPER 50.

The lead image at the top shows a group of students being tutored (Photo by Sharada Balasubramanian)

Pramod Kulkarni is a lifelong social worker. He is the founder of SATHI – the Society for the Assistance to Children in Difficult Situations for which he was just awarded the Times Now “Amazing Indian” under the Shelter Management category. This tutoring work is a separate initiative.