When Kamlesh Joshi joined Delhi College’s Dyal Singh Faculty in 2007 to pursue an honours diploma in physics, he shortly realised two issues. First, he had no actual curiosity within the sciences and had chosen the topic primarily on account of household stress. Second, the hole between him and his friends at Delhi College was extra like a valley than a schism.
Calling his expertise a tradition shock could be an understatement — every little thing about this new atmosphere was unfamiliar to him, coming from a rural background.
Unable to manage, and regardless of opposition from his household, he dropped out after his first 12 months and switched to political science at Shaheed Bhagat Singh Faculty. However this too proved difficult: transitioning to a wholly new subject (having studied science at school), and far of the instructing was carried out in English, whereas he had attended a Hindi-medium college (Saraswati Vidya Mandir, Nanakmatta, Uttarakhand). Many lectures went over his head “like a bouncer”.
When it was time to fill out examination kinds, he stored them for per week earlier than deciding which language he would write the exams in. Hindi was his consolation zone, however English was the problem he wanted to overcome. In the end, he took the more durable route and studied tirelessly in libraries and with buddies from his village who have been pursuing comparable topics at Jawaharlal Nehru College (JNU). His arduous work and perseverance paid off — he topped his class of 18 college students and received a gold medal, a redeeming achievement within the eyes of his household again residence in Nanakmatta.
Kamlesh then went on to earn an MBA in worldwide enterprise with a specialisation in tourism from the Indian Institute of Tourism and Journey, Gwalior. He assumed {that a} skilled diploma would safe him a decent-paying job, even when his profession in tourism wouldn’t considerably influence the world.
An opportunity dialogue along with his JNU buddies led them to query their futures and what contributions they may make to society. That’s when the thought took root: why not begin a faculty of their village to make sure future generations wouldn’t face the identical cultural and academic gaps they’d? “We learnt every little thing below the ‘danda’ system (strict, imposed self-discipline), and this fear-based schooling solely produces well-trained people, not well-educated ones,” Kamlesh argues.
The group unanimously agreed — they needed to make a change. The following era in Nanakmatta deserved a greater, extra trendy schooling that aligns with the remainder of the nation and the world.
This dialogue at JNU formed the following few years for the small group of 5 — Kamlesh Joshi, Varsha, Kamlesh Atwal, Chandra Shekhar Atwal, and Gopal Dutt Joshi — who had ventured outdoors their residence state for increased schooling, a transfer usually discouraged by households of their village.
The early years
Deciding to start out a faculty was one factor, however really strolling the speak was a wholly completely different ballgame. Not one of the 5 founders had formal coaching in schooling, monetary backing, or expertise working with youngsters.
With an preliminary batch of 110 college students and an funding of Rs 40 lakh cobbled collectively from numerous sources, ‘Nanakmatta Public College’ started operations in 2012. It began in a former orphanage with simply six academics, minimal assets, and little experience. The one factor the founders have been clear about was their mission — to supply a holistic schooling incorporating Twenty first-century expertise, one thing they’d by no means skilled themselves.
To start with, issues have been chaotic. Apart from neighborhood assist, they’d nothing of their favour. However they determined to persevere.
To be taught and enhance, they started observing and learning different instructional fashions. They drew inspiration from Educate for India (TFI) after being a part of TFIx (TFI’s incubator programme), Aavishkaar (a science and maths centre in Palampur), and Bal Vigyan Khojshala of Berinag, Uttarakhand (supported by Pratham Science Program). They invited these and different instructional organisations to their campus for steerage.
Concurrently, they started to make use of movies — world cinema, artwork movies, documentaries, and Bollywood — extra aggressively to reveal the scholars to what’s occurring outdoors their fast environs. For the final 5 years, they’ve been utilizing cinema as a pedagogical instrument to enhance classroom studying below the ‘Cinema in College Initiative’, with steerage from cinema activists and educators from completely different components of the nation.
“We didn’t simply watch the movies for enjoyable however actively debated, mentioned, argued, and drew classes and insights from what we had proven them,” explains Kamlesh Atwal, one of many 5 co-founders and the tutorial coordinator on the college. Movie, he says, slowly however absolutely grew to become an integral a part of their studying and expression, as did subject research and analysis. Each single topic inside the sphere of social sciences was explored and made clearer to college students by the usage of movies.
Since Nanakmatta stays fairly distant from at this time’s India, the college began collaborating with as many organisations outdoors their state as doable, in order that college students could possibly be uncovered to the perfect studying practices and really feel linked to the surface atmosphere. Folks’s Archive for Rural India (PARI), Educate for India, Bal Vigyan Khojshala Samiti, Pratham Science programme, Youngsters Training Revolution (KER), Books for All, Claylab, Pleasure Of Studying Basis, Nature Science Initiative, Life Meets the Lens, amongst a number of others, have been early collaborators. These organisations acted as sponges for the Nanakmatta staff and academics, enabling them to be taught, imbibe, and take in methods to additional schooling in its entirety.
The COVID breakthrough
Oddly, when most different faculties have been grappling with the best way to hold themselves related throughout the pandemic, Nanakmatta College discovered its toes and started to get seen. By this time, the college had near 980 college students and round 65 academics and had managed to safe admission for a few of its college students in moderately good establishments in Delhi and different cities in India.
Not solely have been the scholars coping nicely, however in lots of circumstances, they have been thriving. “The pandemic allowed us to pause in our efforts, catch our breath, and share our learnings with the remainder of the world in a approach — on how multi-dimensional an schooling could be,” says Atwal, who calls 2020 a “watershed” 12 months for his or her college.
The scholars started to show small teams inside their neighborhood whereas sustaining the protocols set in place throughout COVID-19. They began organising libraries of their villages (a observe that continues at this time) and publishing a newspaper that stored everybody abreast of present occasions. Many movies have been made and disseminated by WhatsApp, YouTube, and different mediums, highlighting the college’s modern studying strategies. These started to resonate with faculties and organisations not simply in India but in addition overseas.
Some organisations from outdoors even made the trouble to attach with the college. One of many academics from The Heritage Faculties in Delhi, for example, bought in contact and needed to make use of a number of the materials put out by Nanakmatta. Digital lecture rooms and digital visits from members of TFI have been additionally organised at the moment, giving the surface world a peek into the college’s workings.
The validation from those that had been within the schooling sector gave the founders extra confidence and the vitality to redouble their efforts. By then, Nanakmatta had additionally been formally included into the TFI community, a programme below which the latter gives assist to rural faculties.
Doing it otherwise
A 15-minute movie, Tharu Eco Weaves, made by the scholars of the college on the weaving practices of the Tharus, a tribal neighborhood in Uttarakhand, captures the essence and function performed by this conventional exercise within the lives of the ladies of the neighborhood and the way it has contributed to their financial nicely being. Merely portrayed however professionally shot, the movie was proven on the Udaipur Movie Competition and was extra lately dubbed into Spanish and screened at a competition in Mexico.
One other documentary movie, Gold In The Web, made by the college scholar physique made its approach to a movie competition in London. “The thought of utilizing movie as a pedagogical instrument started to indicate outcomes when our personal college students took the initiative and started making movies that highlighted and unfold consciousness of native tradition and practices across the globe,” shares Atwal.
A professor from Jamia Milia College in Delhi has additionally been working intently with the scholars to hone their expertise in filmmaking and supply steerage wherever wanted.
In 2021, when Nationwide Geographic launched a public science programme/problem to doc the biodiversity of the area, Nanakmatta College was one of many early contributors. A complete of 1.5 lakh completely different species of biodiversity have been documented by the scholars. Even when the undertaking expanded to 300 cities, the college was capable of preserve its place among the many prime three, due to its sharp give attention to environmental research, which incorporates birdwatching as a part of the curriculum.
In November 2024, 56 college students from the college went on a week-long instructional tour to Jaipur and Delhi, the learnings and insights from which have been then compiled and illustrated of their college journal The Explorer. “These collective efforts of studying and dealing collectively give our college students invaluable publicity and educate them that true studying occurs outdoors the 4 partitions of the classroom,” Atwal factors.
A journalism and social media membership additionally assist the scholars keep in contact with day by day and related happenings, each in India and globally.
Extra lately, the college has been awarded the Wipro Earthians award for adopting and spreading safer menstruation practices amongst women, who’ve switched to utilizing menstruation cups fairly than pads and different much less environmentally pleasant choices.
The observe was initiated by the senior women of Nanakmatta and is now being actively promoted by college students in faculties throughout the area. This initiative is intently guided and supported by the Nature Science Initiative Crew of Dehradun, Uttarakhand. Up to now, college students have reached out to 40 faculties to lift consciousness about this sustainable observe.
A College for Entrepreneurship has additionally been launched with 120 college students, serving to them perceive the idea of entrepreneurship and be taught to market items made by tribal and different communities. Pankaj Wadhwa, who runs the Udhyam undertaking that nurtures, helps, and funds entrepreneurs in Uttarakhand, believes that a lot of his future entrepreneurs might emerge from this distinctive initiative — one just about unseen in some other faculties within the state.
A small, quiet revolution
What has stunned mother and father, the neighborhood, educationists, and academicians throughout India is the place the scholars are discovering themselves after college and the way they stand out wherever they go.
Virtually 10 college students from the college have secured full scholarships at Ashoka College, Sonepat — an achievement unprecedented for a rural college and regarded more durable than gaining admission to prestigious establishments similar to St Stephen’s Faculty, Delhi. Additionally, one of many Nanakmatta college students at Ashoka College lately received the RISE fellowship and will probably be heading to Oxford College this 12 months for a two-week programme.
One other scholar from Nanakmatta, additionally learning at Ashoka, lately accompanied Educate For India’s CEO Shaheen Mistri to an schooling convention in Malaysia as a scholar consultant. In response to Mistri, the college is doing “one thing very completely different and really proper”, as she has but to fulfill such confident and conscious college students from India’s rural panorama.
Moreover, 15 Nanakmatta college students have made their approach into Azim Premji College in Bengaluru and Bhopal, with others securing spots in good schools at Delhi College. To assist college students deal with the extent of English required at these establishments and develop vital delicate expertise, a mentor from the Claylab Basis (a collaborator of the college) is assigned to every scholar from Class 9 onwards to assist them hone their language, important pondering, and different expertise.
With 95 % of Nanakmatta college students being first-generation English-medium learners, 20 % coming from households beneath the poverty line, and 40 % coming from the Tharu tribe, the college is defying all odds. Just a few of the early graduates are actually working in high-paying and fairly safe authorities and personal sector jobs in metropolitan cities — an achievement that may have as soon as appeared unimaginable to their mother and father.
All of the validation acquired by the Nanakmatta college founders has led them to launch a two-year Himalayan Fellowship for Transformation, with none authorities assist or intervention. With six fellows to start out with, the programme is nurturing younger leaders who can replicate this mannequin and contribute by introducing modern studying and instructing strategies in faculties throughout the state, which the founders argue is essentially the most urgent want for the following era.
In the meantime, the college is steadily rising and now has a complete of 1,350 college students with a instructing employees of round 70. It has managed to interrupt even and turn out to be self-sustaining, with charges starting from Rs 750 (major) to Rs 2,000 (Class 12) per 30 days, whereas delivering a high quality of schooling that many high-end non-public faculties in India’s metros wrestle to supply, regardless of having far higher assets.
Till lately, the Nanakmatta Gurudwara, a couple of kilometres from the city centre, was the only crowd-puller on this in any other case unremarkable city. However now, this small college has turn out to be a brand new beacon of hope — for folks, college students, and the broader neighborhood — serving to the 5 founders realise their dream of creating a distinction.
As its college students carve out paths as soon as deemed not possible, this quiet revolution is popping a forgotten village right into a blueprint for change, one classroom at a time.
Edited by Khushi Arora; All photographs courtesy Nanakmatta Public College
This text was initially revealed in Outlook India.
