An ode to excellence

In a 130-year old tradition of nurturing value-based education in children starting from luminaries like freedom fighters - Lala Lajpat Rai, Shaheed Bhagat Singh, Noble Laureate Har Gobind Khorana to Astronaut Kalpana Chawala, down to giving four Prime Ministers Atal Bihari Vajpayee, I K Gujral, Manmohan Singh, former and current President of India Giyani Zail Sing and Ramnath Kovind, third Chief Justice of India, Justice Mehr Chand Mahajan, State Governors like Krishna Kanth, O P Kohil, Acharya Dev Vrat, the Dayanand Anglo Vedic (DAV) institutions made a mark of its own in the Indian Education System.

In conversation with The Young Hans, and a national best teacher award winner (2008) and best teacher award winner from Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) in 2002, Seetha Kiran, Regional Director, South Zone of DAV Institutions shared the DAV's commitment towards children's education.

1. How did the journey of DAV started?

A. It was started in the year 1883 in Lahore, United India. After partition, the DAV had made Punjab as its home and then its headquarters moved to Delhi. We have about 900 schools and colleges across the country, besides DAV University in Jalandhar.

Out of all these institutions, 700 are schools, and the remaining are colleges imparting education in a degree, agriculture, engineering, medicine, pharmacy and other streams. Our journey started in South India, in the year 1983, with first school at Safilguda in Hyderabad. Now, we have 27 schools, 15 in Telangana and five in Karnataka, one in Chennai and remaining in Andhra Pradesh.

The DAV Management Committee President Poonam Suri, himself leading the team of DAV to ensure that the tradition of DAV continues to be vibrant in the country taking care of nurturing young children to be the brightest stars of the country in different fields.

2. How the DAV is different from other educational institutions?

A. We are not an institution which prepares children to become a particular professional like doctors, engineers, IITáns and the like. Instead, we focus on preparing children with values of education with which they can choose what they wanted to be and be the best in their fields. This is well reflected in the long-tradition of education, we have behind us. There were freedom fighters, presidents and prime ministers of the country, scientists, Governor's of different states, luminaries in legal and science, film actors, media and different other fields.

3. Where are you operating in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh?

A. Apart from the urban areas like Hyderabad. DAV is running schools even in the remote parts like Donkarayi in Sileru forest area, located in a corner on the border with Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

Some of these schools are mainly started to provide quality education to the employees of the hydel and thermal power projects located in different parts of the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh. Apart from the employees’ children, we also provide education to the tribal children and masses wherever we are. What is heartening to share is the first generation of those students from these remote parts are now become engineers, some settling in countries like USA. One of our students Markat Lal, is now undergoing training provided by the Telagnana State government for civil services.

Similarly, we have schools on the left bank and right bank of Srisailam project. On the left bank, we provide education to children of daily wage earners to ensure they come up with bright colours in their futures.

4. How is the first school in Safilguda going?

A. I worked as a Regional Director as well principal of the schools for 20 years. Our students are not only front line leaders, but also Frontline learners making them different from others in whatever profession they are working. For example, Jameel Fathima Zeba, the 62nd ranker in the Civil Services was from our school. There were several of such children from about 18,000 students of our institutions in TS and AP. And, there are countless number of achievers from a million of DAV students from across the country come up in every field on the top. Safilguda School, for which I was a founder and teacher have many such students.

5. What inspires your students to become achievers?

A. The DAV philosophy is to ensure our children are not settling for less. We create an eco-system in its nature and provide life skills, communication skills and subject skills. This, in turn, gives our children an edge to balance their life with their pursuits to excel; making them successful at the same time they fit into the society, without mongering for any exclusivity.

6. Aren't your children missing the bus of current trends of becoming an IITian and the like?

A. Unfortunately, this whole trend was started in Andhra Pradesh to become an IITian and to go to the USA and spread in the whole country. It was further galvanised when middle-calls started dreaming big on this. Nowadays, even poorest among the poor parents are tightening their belts to admit their wards in corporate schools. This was mainly that the aspirations of parents have become high.

Though, it was a good development in one way, universities and research institutions have been missing the best brains as most of them are going either engineering or medicine. However, these days children have become conscious about what is going on around them. Now, they consciously choose fields like Agricultural Engineering, Biotechnology and the like, moving ahead with a clear vision and target.

7. Most of the schools in the private sector do not have facilities for sports and games, exposure and thing like that. What is your stand on this?

A. From schools to the cluster level our children play about 25 games and participate in competitions at the cluster, zonal and national levels. Other than that, we have NCC, Scouts and Guides, cultural festivals and a host of other things.

Besides, we are involved in the Classroom Connectivity Programme of the British Council, though, which, our students and teachers connect with the students and teachers in other countries. We have such programmes with a school in Singapore, Japan and even we have exchange programmes with them. Participation in the Model United Nations programme and others are some other things through our students exposure is holistic in nature.

8. What is that one unique thing about DAV?

A. We empower children to learn values as well as life skills. In particular, our present goal is preparing them with 21st century skills- Communication, Collobaration, Critical Thinking and Creativity.

For this, we empower our teachers, principals, parents and all other stakeholders with a focus on all our efforts benefit the children studying in our schools and prepare them to face the next level in their journey of education.

9. There are so many schools which charging high fees from parents. Is it DAV providing affordable education?

A. DAV is a school run by a trust. So, we don't have to prepare our budget with an eye to have a surplus and to earn. Similarly, we cannot have a deficit budget, which would hit the sustenance of our efforts.

We provide salaries and others to our teaching and other staff, as per the government norms. So, there is a one-time fee and the kind of quality education, we provide in schools like Safilguda is most sought after by various sections of people since its inception. This shows that DAV education is very much affordable for people Vis a Vis others in the corporate and private sector.

BY VRC Phaniharan