Education visionary

Starting with a tiny school and an enrollment of seven primary students in suburban Mumbai in 1963, it’s been a journey of achievements for Dr. R. Varadarajan promoter-chairman of National Education Society (NES) and Saraswathi Vidya Bhavan trusts. On April 14, the NES and SVB trusts celebrated the promotion and operationalisation of 43 of their education institutions ranging from primary to postgrad at a star-studded 43rd anniversary function presided by Pradip Madhavji, former chairman of Thomas Cook (India) and currently consul general of New Zealand in Mumbai. Currently education institutions promoted by the two trusts aggregate a student strength of 28,000 instructed by a faculty of 750, spread over four education complexes and five suburbs in Mumbai. “Since inception, all institutions under the NES and SVB banners have achieved 100 percent results and produced merit rankers in school board and university examinations,” says Varadarajan, a history and political science graduate of Mumbai University. A trained and experienced education administrator, Varadarajan also has a Ph D in educational services from Dyanora University, Italy. In his four decades of service to Indian education, Varadarajan has received many accolades and golden opinions. Among them: Best Teacher award from the President of India (1994); Best Principal award from the President (1995); Netaji Centenary award for best educationist (1997) and the Centenary Award of the Planning Commission (2004). Moreover in 2002, all education institutions under the NES and SVB umbrella were awarded the ISO 9001 seal of approval, and recently the NES Ratnam College of Arts, Science and Commerce (estb:1983) was granted an ‘A’ rating by NAAC (National Assessment & Accreditation Council). “The future of India is dependent upon the quality of education we provide the nation’s children. Therefore we have to continuously upgrade our systems, syllabuses and curriculums. To this end we promoted the NES Teachers Training Institute in 2003 and the NES National Centre for Research & Development in Education, Science and Technology — the first and only such NGO in the country,” says Varadarajan. Committed to making provision for the marginalised and underprivileged in his scheme of things, Varadarajan who under the aegis of the SVB Trust already runs the U.M. Thevar (K-X) High School with an enrollment of 459 students in Dharavi (reportedly Asia’s largest and most industrially productive slum habitation), plans to establish a vocational institute offering a variety of training programmes there. “There are a large number of enterprising youth in Dharavi, who given a modicum of formal training can become successful entrepreneurs. I intend to illustrate this by setting up a vocational college there,” says Varadarajan, whose future plans include promoting a private university. May your tribe increase! Gaver Chatterjee (Mumbai) Advantageous tie-up With the Delhi-based All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), the apex body monitoring technical and higher education in the country, reluctant to permit foreign universities from setting up their own campuses in India, and tuition fees in US and European universities spiralling, a growing number of varsities abroad are beginning to discern the advantages of twinning agreements…