Is Faridabad school really worthy of the praises for IIT-JEE?

Jaiprakash Gaur, Vice Principal of the Modern Vidya Niketan at Sector 17 says class XII is full even when several A-list Delhi school students are flocking to Faridabad. This has been going on since Friday because 66 students from MVN, including All India Rank 1 Arpit Agarwal, made it to the IIT-JEE shortlist.

Surprisingly the teachers are not surprised one bit by the results. According to reports, approximately, five years ago, the school had taken a conscious decision in order to train students for competitive exams. What made the school different from the other schools is that the faculty had already foreseen these needs and requirements, as the students were ignoring school, and joining coaching institutions.

From 2006-07, students of the school have improved quite a lot. The school has seen tremendous growth not just at the IIT-JEE but also All India Engineering Entrance Exam (AIEEE) along with All India Pre Medical test (AIPMT). In this year alone, 19 students from 40 in the “medical section” of AIPMT have cleared the exams. IIT selections that floated at 40-45 so far peaked this year. Also, more and more students have started to opt for non-medical stream, thus, giving an incredible boom to the engineering entrance exams.

At the same time JEE 2012 chairperson Dr G B Reddy after confirming the news said “This is an age where students go to coaching institutes and schools are mere stamps. But if they are producing results unlike other schools, two toppers in three years for instance, we need to analyse what exactly they are doing.” It is also worth noting that the school authorities even now maintain that, the only magic lies in “relentless” focus on competitive exams from the shaping and influential years.

Each year, a group of 25 students from classes IV and V are chosen after screening tests in order to attend competitive coaching for the National ScienceTalent Search Examination and Olympiad — from 8 am to 2 pm on Saturday. In the middle school, one class is held for students from classes VI to VIII, and one for classes IX-X. Students are accordingly divided into sections for pure CBSE level, IIT/AIPMT level and AIEEE level and then an entrance test is held for Class XI and precisely 177 students are selected. Of these, 107 are admitted on the basis of CBSE Class X results whilst 70 are scholarship students. These 70 are then again separated in two sections, together known as the super ability sections that cover IIT.