'Perseverance, purpose and passion needed for success'

Patna: State education department principal secretary

D S Gangwar

on Monday said students should imbibe the mantra of 3 Ps - passion, purpose and perseverance - to excel in life.

Addressing the students at the prize distribution ceremony of 'Solve and Win' contest organized by

Ramanujan School of Mathematics

of

Super 30

fame and United Group of Institutions, he said, "It is very important to have a passion and a bigger purpose in life. It is also said that perseverance is more important than intelligence to excel in any field." D S Gangwar said researchers claim that a person can specialize in any domain by 10,000 hours of perseverance.

He also cited the success story of

Thomas Alva Edison

, who has over 1,000 patents to his name, despite a formal schooling of just a few months. "Genii are not born, they are made by a system. They have a different thinking pattern and the passion to do something specific in life," he said.

Thousands of students from across the state took part in the contest which included conceptual questions from mathematics and science subjects. Three best performers - Vinit Raj, Aditya Anand and Sumit Raj - have been selected for international educational trip and will head for a research institute in Bangkok and Tokyo University in Japan in July.

The second prize winners - Mayank Ranjan, Ritesh Kumar, Saurav Prakash, Anshu Kumar Mishra and Sagar Kumar - have won a national educational trip and will visit IIT-Delhi, IIT-Kanpur and other technical colleges in India in July. Many other students were given watches and other gift hampers for performing well in the test.

United Group of Institutions chairman Giridhar Gopal Gulati, who was also present on the occasion, told youngsters to make education their primary goal in life. "Nothing can be achieved without education," he said.

Super 30 founder and director Anand Kumar said many talented students had taken part in the contest and congratulated the winners on their achievements. Some other students who excelled at the contest included Vipul, Prince, Pratyush, Shreyam, Shekhar, Ajay, Kundan, Sanjana, Abbas, Nitin and Kushagra.