Chhattisgarh's 'Dream 30' bears fruit: 2 students top board exam

The Chhattisgarh government's 'Dream 30' initiative to provide specialised and quality education in the state's Jashpur district has bore fruit as two students, who were a part of the initiative, were among the ten toppers in class X Chhattisgarh board exams.

The initiative was launched in May 2016 in the impoverished district with 67 per cent tribal population to educate meritorious children from poor families.

"There is already a government programme called Sankalp which has 150 students, but that takes students after class X. We realised that it was important to give meritorious students an opportunity to build a base before that and launched Dream 30, funded by District Mineral Foundation,'' said Jashpur district magistrate Priyanka Shukla.

"Under the scheme, 200 students applied, and 30 were selected for a residential school with specialised attention. Four of those students have scored above 96 percent, while two of them are among the ten toppers,'' she added.

Mahendra Kumar Behera, whose father works at a medical store, has secured the fourth position with 97.17 per cent marks. Anoop Bhagat is the joint sixth position holder with 96.83 per cent marks. Two girls, Philki Lehre and Poornima, have managed 96 per cent marks.

Behera and Bhagat said that they wanted to become engineers and study at IITs while Lehre said that she aspired to become a collector.

Shukla said that 60 per cent of Dream 30 students secured above 90 per cent.

She added that Jodhan Ram, who belongs to Pahari Korba primitive tribe, was one of the initiative's major success stories. He scored 71 per cent marks.

"In class IX, Ram, who is from Sardapath village, got 43 per cent. This 28 per cent is because of the specialised attention they got. I visit the school once a fortnight at least just to let the students be comfortable and know that they there were people who cared around them,'' she added,

Even Chief Minister Raman Singh encouraged the students on his visit to Jashpur.

"This will encourage the rest of the children as well," Shukla said.

Overall, 3.86 lakh students had appeared for the exam with 61.04 per cent of them clearing it. Last year, the pass percentage was 55.32 per cent.