Aychuta Samanta’s KISS: Mainstreaming Marginalized Communities through Education

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Excerpts

Samanta had a troubled childhood and experienced poverty at first hand. In 1970, when he was only four, his father, a factory worker at a Tata Steel plant in Jamshedpur, was killed in a train accident. His mother was left to fend for herself and her seven children. She was forced to move back to their village of Kalarabank, Odisha, with Samanta and his two youngest siblings. From the age of six, Samanta worked in the fields and tried to support the family with the meager income he earned from selling paddy husks, coconut, and bananas, while trying to get an education for himself.....

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In 1992, Samanta established the Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT), an industrial training institute, with just two rooms, 12 students, two faculty members, and Rs.5000 (US$100) saved from his job as a chemistry lecturer. He used to go door to door to collect money to fund the venture. He also took loans and worked around 18 hours a day, plowed back the profits into the institution, bought land, and expanded. By 2004, the institution had grown into a multi-disciplinary university........

KISS offered education at the primary, high, and secondary school levels. It had put in place a qualified team of faculty to run the various courses. Girls were given preference at the time of admission. In the school, the medium of teaching was Odiya (the local language) with English as a compulsory subject from Std IV onward......

The expenses of running KISS ran into millions. For instance, the expenditure for the year 2011-12 was more than Rs. 370 million. KISS relied on a number of sources to cover its expenses (See Exhibit VI for sources of income of KISS). The KIIT Society had passed a resolution under which 5% of the total turnover of the KIIT Group of Institutions was donated to KISS. This was much before the debate on compulsory CSR started in India........

By 2013, KISS had a student strength of more than 20,000 children, around 43% of them being girls. They included all the 62 tribes of Odisha and students from adjoining states. In Odisha, the pass percentage of students in Class 10 and Class 12 was just 60-70%, but the students of KISS had achieved 100% in both these exams since 2009. Many students of KISS performed well in academics as well as in sports. Some of the students also participated in various national and international events. ........

With KISS already being recognized as a model for tribal empowerment, Samanta wanted to replicate it in other parts of India. As of 2013, Samanta was concentrating on expanding the operations of KISS as he felt that he was “happiest working with the poorest of the poor”. According to him, “KIIT University has reached its optimal expansion capability and now our focus within the university will be on continuously improving quality of teaching, academics, and research........

Exhibit I:Constitutional Safeguards for Scheduled Tribes in India
Exhibit II: Main provisions of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act
Exhibit III: KISS’s Vision and Mission
Exhibit IV: Growth of KISS over the years (student strength)
Exhibit V: Distribution of Students by Class (Session 2012 – 2013)
Exhibit VI: Sources of Income of KISS (2011-2012)
Exhibit VII: A Map Showing Near-term Plans for Expansion of KISS