From slums to roll of honour

Updated on: Thursday, June 09, 2011

Over a million students across India take the All India Engineering Entrance Exam (AIEEE), aspiring to make it to top-notch tech colleges. But this year, some students from the city’s darkest pockets have overcome hardships and made their mark in the AIEEE. One of them is Nitesh Phadtare, who stood 3, 000th in the state and 60, 000 in India. But two years ago, this Byculla boy had no clue of where he was headed. His mother, who supplies tiffins, and father, who is a truck driver couldn’t afford to spend much on his additional study material. “I studied and revised everything that was taught in class. I want to do electronic engineering, but as of now I am waiting for my CET results. My teachers were very helpful and it is because of them that I have scored this much,” said Nitesh.

The 18-year-old is one of those students who was selected by the BMC to join one of the colleges that was outsourced to a private coaching institute. “Most of the students who enrolled for AIEEE came from Marathi medium schools, hence they had no exposure to English language. There were 72 students who took the AIEEE exams this year, of them 17 students were those selected by the BMC,” Nitesh said.

These students were from Bhavani Shankar Road Junior Science College, Dadar and Ratanbai Walbai Junior Science College, Mulund. Students were allowed to use the library where they could study even after class. They were given additional coaching for the competitive exam and IIT students visited the colleges to answer all their doubts. Another success story is that of Swaraj Patil who stood 5, 000th in Maharashtra and 89, 000 in India. He used to study while travelling from his home at Virar to Dadar. “I would get up at 05:00 am every morning. Since travelling took up most of my time, I would make it a point to revise on the train everyday. In those two to three hours of travelling, I managed to revise at least two chapters,” Swaraj said.

Moving from the BMC school to std XI made a lot of difference. “The method of teaching at both the places was very different. In school, topics were lightly brushed upon but in std XI and XII, every single detail was taught to us,” he added.

From slums to roll of honour

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