Shiv Nadar Foundation’s VidyaGyan, a residential leadership academy for meritorious rural children, will soon spread its wings in Tamil Nadu, said Roshini Nadar Malhotra, CEO of HCL Corporation and a trustee of the Shiva Nadar Foundation.
Tamil Nadu will be the second State after Uttar Pradesh to house the VidyaGyan residential academy, which was started in 2009 with the objective of creating future leaders from rural India to drive transformation in the hinterlands. It has set up two VidyaGyan campuses at Bulandshahr and Sitapur in UP with a total investment of ₹250 crore. The current capacity of these two campuses is 2,000, and this year, they have about 1,500 students.
The Tamil Nadu campus is likely to come up near SSN College in Chennai. This campus may draw rural students not just from Tamil Nadu but also from other southern States, she said.
Achievements
Delivering the 41st Nani Palkhivala Memorial Lecture organised by the Palkhivala Foundationhere, she discussed the achievements of the VidyaGyan school as more than 95 per cent of the students, who joined from rural districts of Uttar Pradesh and other States, have gone for higher education.
Giving a presentation on ‘Sitapur to Stanford’, she highlighted the efforts made to bring in boys and girls to the VidyaGyan School from rural belts to provide quality education as part of the broader objective of creating future leaders from Bharat. “It has taken 14 years of learning and many mistakes,” she added.
The average annual income of VidyaGyan students’ families was about ₹35,000. While the school started with students from 75 rural districts of Uttar Pradesh, it has, over these years, taken rural students from 14 States.
In the past 14 years, VidyaGyan has educated more than 1,700 students and about 18 students from this school had gone to study at global institutions like Stanford University.
Roshni Nadar Malhotra released a book on ‘Palkhivala @ 20 Remembering the Legend’. The first copy of the book was received by Lakshmi Venu, Deputy Managing Director, TAFE Motors & Tractors.
Lakshmi Venu said for the first time in the country, both urban and rural are ready to fire together. Digital has brought a huge transformation in rural India though more efforts are needed to support people.
Late Nani Palkhivala was regarded as one of the brightest minds as far an the Constitution is concerned and he was also a former Ambassador to the US. The book was edited by Kasturi Balaji, one of the Trustees of the Foundation.