26 of 29 students from JNV Puducherry clear JEE Advanced, thanks to a couple of former IITians
JNV Puducherry showcased a brilliant JEE Advanced result this year thanks to Avanti Fellows, a student coaching organisation founded by former IITians Akshay Saxena and Krishna Ramkumar. Here's the story of this organisation.
The JEE Advanced 2020 results were announced on October 8, and 26 out of 29 students from Puducherry’s Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti cleared the same. Aprameya Girish Hebbar from Karnataka topped the school with an all-India rank of 1562 in the JEE Advanced 2020 exam.
The inspiring result from the autonomous institution functioning under the education ministry is thanks to a non-profit organisation Avanti Fellows -- established by two former IIT-ians who wanted to give students from underprivileged backgrounds the same opportunities as the more fortunate.
Akshay Saxena and Krishna Ramkumar started the organisation in 2010 with the support of the Pan-IIT alumni organization. Both Akshay and Krishna came from successful corporate careers -- Krishna is a former gold-medalist at IIT Bombay and Akshay has an MBA from Harvard Business School.
“We have seen a consistently high performance at JNV Puducherry with 100% of the students qualifying JEE Mains and over 90% of the students qualifying JEE Advanced,” said Akshay Saxena, speaking to India Today.
“The reason for this tremendous success is the dedication of the school principal as well as the JNV samiti as well as the tireless efforts of over 30 IIT Madras students who actively mentor and teach these students,” he said.
Bhuvan Gowda from Karnataka who studied in JNV Doddaballapur till class 10 was selected for a 2-year JEE coaching in JNV Puducherry and he went on to score 99.75% in the JEE Mains.
Saxena added that similarly strong performance was seen from other JNVs as well with close to 30% of all students clearing JEE advanced.
“In fact, our target in every JNV is for 100% of the students to clear the JEE mains. Today we are at 62% and getting better each year,” he said.
This year, out of the 270 students who appeared for the JEE Main exam after coaching by Avanti, 70 students cleared JEE Mains and 52 secured a 90-above percentile.
The story behind the formation of Avanti Fellows
Akshay Saxena’s father served in the Indian Navy and being brought up in such a household instilled in him a deep sense of national pride and a desire to serve our country.
“The inspiration behind Avanti came during my time as an undergraduate student at IIT Bombay where I was struck by the life stories of several classmates who came from rural India and low-income families,” he said.
He found it incredible that despite their relative lack of privilege, many of these ruralstudents outperformed him at academics, sports and almost any facet of college life.
But he knew that students from rural, low-income backgrounds were more than 7 times less likely to get into the IITs and even when they did get through, they struggled due to poor quality school education.
Thus, Saxena started a student mentoring programme at IIT Bombay to support these students and ensure a great career for them.
Over time, he worked at the Boston Consulting Group, studied at Harvard Business School and helped start a billion-dollar valuation startup in Silicon Valley
“As I witnessed relative success in my early career, I also became acutely aware of the fact that lakhs of students who were more gifted and hard-working than me were being shut-out of this opportunity just because they lived in rural India or came from low-income families,” he said.
In 2013, Akshay Saxena moved back to India to help fix this problem and founded Avanti Fellows with Krishna Ramkumar.
Teaching methods used by Avanti Fellows
The organisation uses the ‘Peer Instruction’ pedagogy which reduces teacher dependence and enables collaborative learning among the students.
Government school students can avail a two-year coaching from Avanti Fellows, focusing on maths and science, where the organisation would provide access to study materials, books and electronic gadgets that will help the learning process become seamless and engaging.
Mentors would also be provided who would guide the students with the best practices to clear competitive exams.
Avanti has also launched the Sankalp YouTube channel for Hindi medium government school students of classes 9 to 12. The channel was built in collaboration with government school teachers and pedagogical experts in India and at Harvard University.
Today, Avanti Fellows has made its presence felt in across 16 states and 3 union territories, impacting over 1 million students.
“Over the past 10 years, we have shown that our students outperform the most expensive after-school programs in the country at less than one-fourth the cost," said Akshay Saxena.
Students to remember
Over the years, the organisation established by the former IITians has seen many success stories. But Akshay Saxena recalled four special cases.
Vedant Somani a student of the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya Puducherry secured All India Rank 36 in the IIT JEE Mains 2014 and AIR 319 in the IIT JEE Advanced. He went on to study computer science at IIT Madras and continued to stay connected to Avanti’s social work.
Vedant also helped establish the student mentoring programme in IIT Madras from which students visited JNV Puducherry to help prepare the next batch of students. He is now a software engineer at Microsoft.
Another student Sunil Rana, went on to study electrical engineering at IIT Kanpur and was selected as a probationary officer at the Indian Railways.
Seema Rani Satpathy from JNV Bolangir went to IIT Kharagpur, and Yashika from JNV Mangalore went to IIT Kanpur.
“More than the acceptance into IIT, the continued involvement of our alumni in social development and nation building is what is the most heartening,” said Saxena.
Future plans of Avanti Fellows
“Our first major goal is to reach all of the 35,000 gifted rural students in the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas who are aspiring engineers and doctors. We currently reach 10,000 of these students,” said Akshay Saxena.
“Another is to expand our free online school (Avanti Sankalp) which has over 20 lakh monthly active learners,” he added.
The long-term goal of Avanti Fellows is to ensure that at least 1 million students from Indian government schools gain admission to top engineering, medical and science colleges each year.
“We believe this is a massive opportunity if we can make sure that online education is free, high quality and accessible to all,” he beamed.
Read: Teaching with a difference: Meet Shama who is educating children in a Delhi slum
Read: This 33-year-old Indian Railway employee is bringing food and education to poor kids
Read: How one man touched the lives of 72,000 people and put hundreds of kids back in school