For the first time ever, 506 students belonging to the Telangana Tribal Welfare Residential Educational Institutions (TTWREIs) and Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions (TSWREIs) cracked the JEE Mains, 2019 and have qualified for JEE Advanced to be held this month. This comes as an achievement since it is the first time that such a large number of students belonging to both the institutions have qualified for one of India’s premier examinations. The students have achieved the rare feat, standing tall defying poverty and deprivation.
The social welfare institutions – Telangana Tribal Welfare Residential Educational Society (TTWREIS) and the Telangana Social Welfare Residential Educational Society (TSWREIS) – are residential colleges run by the state government that provide education to underprivileged students hailing from the SC and ST communities.
What makes the success even more commendable is that all the students who have cracked the exam hail from marginalised villages and tribal hamlets, whose parents work as agricultural labourers, masons, vegetable vendors, tea sellers, and clerks.
Out of the 506 students who have cleared the exam, 307 are from social welfare residential institutions and 199 from tribal welfare institutions. Twenty two social welfare and 13 tribal welfare students have qualified in the open category.
Rajnikesh Vardhan of Social Welfare IIT College, Gowlidoddi, secured 203 marks out of 360 with 98.41 percentile. Korra Mahesh of Tribal Welfare IIT Study centre, Rajendra Nagar, bagged all India 410 rank in the ST category with 95.3 percentile. Azmeera Mahesh of Rajendra Nagar College clinched all India 486 rank in the ST category. L Tejaswini and K Priyason belonging to social welfare schools scored 93.4 and 93.62 percentile respectively.
“The current year’s results remain a golden lettered moment. The entire credit goes to the teachers and principals for their hard work and dedication,” Dr RS Praveen Kumar, secretary of the institutions, said while congratulating the students.
He also thanked the Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and Minister for Welfare Koppula Eshwar for helping to bring a new generation of students from marginalised communities under the KG-PG Mission. “Under the KG-PG Mission, the government is providing free long-term coaching facilities to poor students on par with the corporate institutions, besides nutritious food and coaching materials free,” the secretary further said.
Proving their mettle, in the intermediate board results that were declared recently, the students of the welfare schools outperformed other government colleges and private colleges in the state on a big margin. In the senior inter results, students of the welfare institutions surpassed the state average with a pass percentage of 84.31% as compared to the state’s average pass percentage of 64.8%. In the junior inter results, TSWREIS students attained a pass percentage of 79.63% as against the state average of 59%.