Patna,(BiharTimes):When Ashutosh Kumar founded his startup, hecould only hope that it would be the kind of success he had seen in movies. With the help of 5 of his friends from IIT Mumbai and IIT Delhi, he started www.testbook.com, a test preparation website that focusses on government recruitment exams. After all, if there was one thing Kumar knew, it was how to crack recruitment exams.
“I grew up seeing my friends, classmates and relatives taking the Railways, Banking UPSC, IIT and other exams,” said Kumar. “They wanted to get out of here. But few ever made it. I was the outlier. I always wanted to come back.”
Growing up in Madhubani, Bihar, Ashutosh was always a bright young lad, cracking the JEE to end up in IIT Bombay. When he started Testbook in Mumbai, he felt on track to personal victory. But he always nursed a dream of returning and giving back to his home-state.
Kumar observed the bustling coaching industry in nearby Patna and the people drawn to it. He saw the hardships they faced – living away from home, blowing their savings on expensive but substandard coaching centres and paper based test series, with no guarantee of success. He wondered how he could bring a change totheir lives.
Kumar had experienced success in the online testing industry catering to metropolitans and Tier I cities. He was dejected to see that while online testingcould well be the solution to all the problems plaguing students in Bihar, most were reluctant to let go of brick-and-mortar learning shops. So Kumar, now 26 years old, rolled up his sleeves and took a flight out to Patna.
Working on the ground, he introduced thousands of students to their first taste of online testing. And thousands more came every day. The key was to understand local requirements and address them to make students more willing to make the shift to online tests.
Students who had no access to computers or the internet at home, could go to their nearest local cybercafe affiliated with Testbook. Such centres have experts to guide students in the use of the website and purchase and attempt of tests. Those without credit and debit cards could now buy cash cards from kiosks and bookstores to redeem online. Students could also attempt multiple free tests and earn more free tests by practising on Testbook’s app.
Taking tests online on a dedicated platform like Testbook has its unique advantages.Students from Bihar take the same tests as students across the country. So they can accurately benchmark their performance with All India Ranking. Students can get computerized report cards of their strong and weak points after tests. Taking the test without internet is a boon in areas where internet is patchy. Students only need to connect to the internet to start the test and submit the test at the end.
But the biggest benefit to the people of Bihar would be the price of the Railways RRB and SSC CGL 2016 test series. “The actual cost of each test in the rest of the country is ₹25. But for students in Bihar, we dropped it to a special price of only ₹3 per test,” said Kumar with a laugh.
He continued with a look of pride on his face, “Now is the time for Bihar. This will be a landmark year for students here. Nothing like this has been attempted before. The Railways RRB and SSC CGL results will speak for themselves over the next few months. Watch out for the spike in success stories from Bihar.”
