In news

We are proud to find that the community service effort of IIT Kharagpur students, some of them are active NSS volunteers (Link), are drawing attention of national media like NDTV, Times of India, The Telegraph, Business Standard, The Hindu Business Line, IBN Live etc. We reproduce some of these articles here.

NDTV Report : May 04, 2012 (Link)

IIT students to organise Educational Yatra

Patna:  IITians for youth (IFY), an organisation of students from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur, is organising an educational Yatra for students from Bihar to provide quality learning and creating awareness among rural and underprivileged students.

The organisation in association with the Bihar Police will be organising this Yatra from May 5 to May 25.

During the campaign the students will be given guidance, motivation and will be shown proper approach towards studies.

The team will visit Gaya, Aurangabad, Rohtas, and Kaimur, apart from a few Maoist-affected areas.

Ankit Agarwal, Senior IFY member said that the students from the rural areas lack awareness about various opportunities available to them and they will be told about all of them like various career options, importance of computer and English education.

Another member Saif Khan# said apart from the students, parents will also be motivated not to let their children drop out of schools.

Others who will be undertaking the Yatra include SAT Ahmad# (wrongly spelt : Imbesat Ahmed), Ankit Agarwal, Nitin Sharma and Bailal Shakir. Altogether 12 members of the IFY are from Bihar.

Times of India Report : May 08, 2012 (Link)

IITians educate children in Maoist-hit areas

GAYA: Undeterred by the Naxals promoting the gun as the ultimate source of power and authority, a group of IITians on Monday visited Imamganj in Gaya district, the Red bastion claimed by the rebels as part of the 'liberated zone'.

The IITians, earlier groomed by Bihar DGP Abhyanand through the Super 30 series, are engaged in a project to create awareness among children of disadvantaged sections to convert challenges into opportunities and go ahead with a focussed plan to make it big in life through education, the ultimate source of power.

According to Imbesat Ahmad#, a third year student of IIT Kharagpur, the team visited three schools including the Imamganj High School and Raniganj High School for personal interaction with the children of the Naxal-prone areas to motivate them to plan their education and focus on larger goals.
Ahmad told TOI from Imamganj that the IITians also interacted with the teachers to have a first hand idea of the problems being faced by the teachers and the taught in the Red bastion.

The visitors, who had apparently done their homework well, have also worked on a strategy to overcome the infrastructural and other shortcomings and improvise skills to neutralise the disadvantages and go ahead for achieving pre-fixed goals.

The visitors also conducted some tests to shortlist promising youngsters who, with proper guidance, have the potential to sharpen their skills and compete with their better placed contemporaries.
The IITians earlier visited the Magadh Super 30 to motivate and guide the youngsters to crack the IITJEE.

Giving tips to the IIT aspirants belonging to the less privileged groups, the visiting IITians shared their own experience and encouraged the IIT aspirants to go in for combined studies as group study is very useful in problem solution and confidence building.

Besides Gaya, the IITians would also be visiting Aurangabad, Rohtas and Kaimur, the other Naxal-prone districts.

The Telegraph : May 05, 2012 (Link)

IITians on education mission

IITians for Youth, an organisation of students from IIT-Kharagpur, is launching an educational yatra, which aims at promoting quality learning and creating awareness about career opportunities after classes X and XII among rural and underprivileged students.

The organisation, in association with Bihar police, will launch the yatra on May 5. For the next 20 days, the IITians will visit four Naxalite-hit districts, including Gaya, Aurangabad, Rohtas and Kaimur. They would later prepare a report on their tour and submit it to the state government.

The 20-member team of IITians left for Gaya in a state bus on Friday. Bihar director-general of police Abhayanand has given his consent for the yatra, which will be supported by the state police. The police, in coordination with the district administrations, would arrange for the food, lodging and transportation on the students.

Imbesat Ahmad#, a member of IITians for Youth, said: “We will primarily focus on students in the age group of 14 years and above, who are in classes IX, X, XI and XII.”

This is the age when maximum number of students drop out of schools. IITians for Youth will create awareness among such students about positive aspects of completing school education.

Ahmad said: “It has been found that despite the government launching various schemes and offering sops to students, a large number of them drop out at the higher secondary level. These students take admission in government schools only for enjoying the benefits of schemes such as Cycle Yojana, Poshak Yojana and others.

“Once the students avail the benefits of these schemes, they quit the school, pushing up the dropout rate.”

Nitin Sharma, who originally hails from Jaipur, said: “This is the first time I am in Bihar. I am very pleased that we are launching such initiatives from the state which has seen a high growth rate in terms of literacy, but still a lot to achieve.”

The young students from IIT will visit the remote areas of the districts and try to address the problems of the students. They would also inform them about the various job opportunities for educated youths.

Nitin said: “There are many carrer opportunities for young students once they clear their classes X and XII examination. They can apply for jobs in railways, industrial training institute (ITI) and the army at lower ranks.”

He added: “If a student, after clearing his or her matriculation or Class XII test, prepares sincerely for such competitive exams, there are high chances that the person would get a job in these fields. Several rural students, however, are not able to utilise these opportunities for lack of awareness. They are left with on other alternative but to assist their families which are mostly working in the fields or are migrant labourers.”

The Hindu Business Line : May 10, 2012 (Link)

IITians rue lack of infrastructure in rural schools in Bihar

Gaya, May 10: A group of IIT-Kharagpur students rued the absence of academic infrastructure and good teachers in schools in the rural areas of Bihar to cater to the academic aspirations of the students.

The students visiting the Maoist-infested central and south Bihar districts, under the banner of the IITians for Youth (IFY), observed that there was a woeful lack of infrastructure and good teachers in the schools to teach young boys and girls, particularly Class IX and X students.

There was no dissemination of quality education in rural schools to enable the students to excel in studies, said an IIT-Kharagpur student, Mr Nishat Ahmed# (Imbesat Ahmed, wrongly spelt), said after visiting rural areas of Gaya district where he interacted with the local students and gave them counselling about education and career.

Though the state government has upgraded several secondary schools into high schools, there was an acute shortage of teachers and more so good teachers, he said.

IIT students interacted with the parents and found that they wanted to provide good education to their children and in the absence of good education in the schools they were forced to send their wards to coaching institutes, Mr Ahmed said.

It was because of academic activities in schools that the coaching institutes were a booming business in the rural areas, he said.

Times of India Report : May 05, 2012 (Link)

IITians to impart vocational skills

PATNA: IITs are known across the world for producing best technical minds, but now the students of IIT-Kharagpur are all set to train those underprivileged students of Bihar who could not make it to such renowned institutions. 'IITians For Youth (IFY)', a group of IIT-Kharagpur students, in collaboration with Bihar Police is organizing a 20-day educational tour starting Saturday in four districts of Bihar to teach vocational skills and create awareness about the importance of education.

"We will be conducting one five-day workshop each in Gaya, Aurangabad, Rohtas and Kaimur," said IFY member Ankit Agrawal, adding "We would hone the computer and English-language skills of poor students apart from imparting other occupational skills."

He added, "We will also talk to parents of the students and sensitize them about the significance of education. We will ask them to not to engage their children in any sort of child labour by taking them out of schools."

"We will inform them about the rights granted to underprivileged students by the government, so that they can fully exercise them. We will also make them aware of various competitive examinations which don't require high academic qualifications and can be given after passing out from class X or class XII," added Imbesat Ahmad#, an IFY member.

Thanking Bihar police for supporting their cause, he said, "The Bihar Police have arranged the infrastructure for this entire yatra. They not only arranged for our accommodation and transportation but also provided us all the necessary tools required for the workshops."

# NSS volunteer

(We shall migrate to  http://iitkgpnss.blogspot.in/ from next academic session which will be administered from iitkgp.nss@gmail.com account.)