Mathematician Anand urges HRD minister to launch education channel

Anand Kumar

Patna (The News). Super 30 founder Anand Kumar on Wednesday urged the union human resource development minister to start an exclusive Doordarshan education channel to cater to the needs of lakhs of students from the underprivileged sections of the society, who can’t easily avail the online facility during the lockdown period in the wake of COVOD-19 pandemic.
Anand, known for his highly successful and famed Super 30 programme, which nurtured 30 students from underprivileged sections at a time every year for IIT-JEE entrance test with a phenomenal success rate, has written to the minister that an exclusive education channel of DD would be of immense help to the students.
“India, like the work, is in the midst of an unprecedented health crisis due to COVID-19 pandemic. The much-needed lockdown to save lives has worked, but it has caused huge disruption in education of our students. Though many institutions are trying to adopt online means, it is not immediately feasible keeping in view the huge variation in the socio-economic condition of a large section of students, with a good chunk barely able to continue their studies due to low-cost government education system,” he wrote.
Under these circumstances, he said, expecting all the students cutting across different economic strata to avail the facility of online education and equally benefit does not seem practical. 
“It requires a decent system or a smart phone and good internet connectivity, all of which come at a cost. All the institutions are also not prepared for online education, though many of them are trying their best. Every household now a days has a television set and having an exclusive DD education channel, with separate time slots for different classes, will be easily accessible to people of all economic strata across the country,” he added.
Urging the minister to come up with an exclusive 24×7 Doordarshan education channel, like the DD Kisan, which is totally devoted to the needs of the farmers, he wrote that it could be a game changer for the students without any extra cost to them.
“It can also have motivational talks and counselling sessions for students. It can also teach them about online benefits to groom them for future. But most importantly, it can cater to educational needs of students,” he added.