Patna:
US President Barack Obama's special envoy Rashad Hussain has said Bihar's 'Super30', which provides free IIT entrance examination coaching to underprivileged students, is the best institute in India.
"Super30 is the best institute in India and an example of change, a dream which US president Barack Obama harbours in the field of education, irrespective of caste and creed," Hussain, Obama's special envoy to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, said in Patna.
"In India wherever I have gone I find it the best thing I have come across," he said.
After meeting students at the institute, the envoy, accompanied by officials of the US Consulate in Kolkata, said he is overwhelmed by the academic atmosphere prevailing in the campus.
"This is a very good beginning, people irrespective of caste and creed are living like members of a community. And back in the US, I will discuss the experience of 'Super30' and 'Samman' and explore if anything could be done there," he added.
Hussain visited the 'Samman Foundation' on Saturday, where they provide healthcare services to rickshaw pullers, their family members and unorganised migrant labourers.
He assured the students at the institute, founded by mathematician Anand Kumar, that he would carry their message for inviting Obama to visit them during his forthcoming India visit.
The Obama administration is committed in bringing social harmony just as it is maintained under the roof of 'Super30', he said.
"Here it is wonderful to see people of all castes and religions," the Indian-American envoy, whose father hailed from the state, said.
'Super30' has achieved a hat-trick with all its 30 students making it to the prestigious IITs for the third consecutive year this time.
Maths wizard Anand Kumar, who himself could not pursue higher studies in Cambridge University due to poverty, gives full scholarships, including travel and stay, to a select batch of 30 poor students since 2002.
Altogether, 212 of the 240 'Super 30' students have cleared one of the country's toughest exams during the last eight years.
Drawing worldwide attention, the institute was recently featured by the Time magazine as "the best school in Asia".
The Discovery Channel had also made an hour-long documentary on the institute.