Training Rural Students for Premier IIT colleges

Vidya Poshak, India is a registered Non Government Organization (NGO), serving education community. The organization was started by a group of compassionate people in the year 2001 at Dharwad, Karnataka with the aim of supporting financially challenged bright students. 

Students belonging to economically disadvantaged families and from rural regions end up severely limiting their educational and career horizons due to lack of financial resources, proper educational guidance, and skills required to succeed. 

Additionally, it has been observed that the best JEE coaching classes are geographically concentrated in states such as Rajashtan, Andrapradesh and Delhi.

In JEE from Karnataka only about 2.5% student clear the JEE Exams. Near 100% of these students are from cities and their parents are well educated. In a state-wise analysis, Karnataka placed 13th on the list of total JEE selections-even behind smaller states such as Orissa, Gujarat, Haryana and Jharkhand.

Today, JEE coaching is a burgeoning industry and typically costs above 1,00,000 which is unreachable to the students from rural economically challenged students. Moreover, most JEE coaching classes operate in urban India, thus contributing to an urban-rural divide in college admission. 

About Avanti Learning Centre:

Avanti Learning Centre is an award-winning, fast-growing venture backed education company started by IIT and Harvard University alumni. Avanti is helping high-school students across India study science through peer collaboration-a method developed by prof.Eric Mazur, Dean of Applied physics at Harvard University and  chair of Avanti’s Academic Advisory Board.  Ashoka, Echoing Green, The Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation and the PanIIT Alumni Organization have recognized Avanti’s work.

Avanti provides students a world-class science and mathematics education to students in class XI and XII. Avanti currently work with over 1,200 students across 4 public school systems,8 independent learning centres and 3 private schools across India.

Avanti’s team is made up of graduates of  the IITs and Harvards. We have rich and varying  experiences in entrepreneurship, research, medical devices and analytics outside of our subject matter expertise.

Goals & Objectives of the VP-Avanti Program:

• Make students independent and self-reliant learners and foster a culture of collaboration.
• Improve learning outcomes for students.
• Produce better percentages on board exams and good ranks in competitive exams.
• Reduce the pressure students face in managing their priorities and time.

VP-Avanti Excellence Program Description:

Avanti  follows a unique peer Learning pedagogy designed by Prof.Eric Mazur, Dean of Applied Physics at Harvard University. This pedagogy focuses on increasing student self-reliance, conceptual understanding and collaboration. Peer learning is a lot more engaging than conventional lecturing and develops skills that are critical to success in college and in careers in science and technology. Students research each topic at home and reinforce their understanding in class through discussion and debates.

Avanti Training modules includes a rich library of workbooks, videos , conceptual questions and doubt-solving resources for the students in addition to the gold standard in classroom management practices. The Avanti program runs for 12 hours a week over a 2-year period.

Classes are conducted on 4 days a week. Students complete substantial pre-class work at home and spend the majority of in-class time solving problems, resolving their doubts and engaging in groups to discuss concepts. Pre-class work includes pre-reading from their textbooks, doing pre-class exercises that test their understanding of the topic read and watching videos that re-enforce conceptual understanding of the topics.

Each classroom is managed by a well-trained, qualified teacher who is responsible for giving individual attention to every student while motivating and guiding them when required, maintaining classroom discipline and facilitating the learning process. Typical time spent on each topic covered by Avanti is given in the below schematic.  

Currently from 2015 batch we have 29 students undegoing their training program and 25 students from 2016 batch are undergoing the training program.

We are expecting the results of 2015 batch by June 2017

Dear Well Wisher

Greetings from Vidya Poshak, Please find key highlights of our JEE Training program

• Now we have two batches of training happening simultaneouly. The first batch 2016-18 there are 29 students and in the second batch 2017-19 there are 25 student undergoing the training.

• The sylabus for the first batch will be completed by end of November and the students will be trained and mentored invidually from December to March. 

• For the indivudual mentoring 3 category of students have been identified and the training and mentoring would be happening according to their category.

• We expect more than 10 students to clear the JEE Mains examination which will be held in May 2017.