The Future

• The school management wishes to extend the school to Class 12.
• The school plans to organize a fashion shows by 2020, where students of the school will be wearing the dresses made by students of this school.
• The school plans to start some technical/vocational courses where these students can be trained.
• The school administration has plans to start NCC at the school by 2017.

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The Philosophy

All the staff member and students follow the philosophy of the founder. They would ensure that there is no wastage of electricity in school. There are many such instances of how the school tries to conserve resources.
There is tremendous punctuality. For the students 9 AM means exact 9 AM. Even on their functions and celebrations they would ensure that there is highest level of punctuality. Comparing other schools the plus point here is that the students are very disciplined and punctual. You ask them to come at 5AM and they will be there at sharp 5 AM. Discipline, order and commitment to perfection are the basic values at Vidyakunj.
One of the fundamental philosophy in the teaching pedagogy of this school is to remove fear from the mind of the student. Even a student from class nursery is encouraged to face the stage and therefore the students are able to perform anchoring and are able to give public performance at a very early stage.
The students go to Shivbari school for their annual board examination. They go in a line, walking for 1.5 KM. All the students go for their examination in their uniform. They organise self-managed queue. The examination starts at 11.30 Am. They reach the school at 8 AM and organise their queue and then leave for their examination centre at 10.30 am. They go from the school to Shivbari Temple and then return back in similar discipline. The basic philosophy followed by the founder and the school is, if you do something, do it in the best way.

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The Academics

In India, homework is a big headache for most parents. Typically, homework is the responsibility of parents. Most parents appoint private tutors to help their children in their homework. But in case of Vidyakunj there is a different concept. There are free evening coaching classes, where students can come and finish their homework and take guidance from Dr Rathore. Every day about 150 students come to evening coaching classes and help each other and take guidance from Dr Rathore. For the students, the guiding parent is only one, Dr Rathore, as the parents of the students are illiterate and not able to guide them. 

The school takes 5 examinations in a year. It is conducted in a very systematic way like Board Examination. The students have to search out their seating arrangement. This creates seriousness among students about examinations. 

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The Environment

At Vidyakunj, students are top priority. The founder claims that he forgets names of his friends and relatives, but remembers names of each of his students. He would daily interact with the students in a jovial manner and would ensure to give them a positive feedback, so that they have a reason to come to the school. In order to cultivate a mental framework for teamwork, Dr Rathore encourages the students to participate in student organised unions. There are student houses and a Students Union. These are managed purely by students. It is a totally students managed system, there are 4 houses

1. Swasthya 

2. Paryavaran 

3. Jal 

4. Prithvi

The house which is on duty will manage everything. The duties of the houses are: 

1. Arranging the assembly of the students 

2. Check the uniform of students 

3. Commanding the assembly 

These houses give students the learning to work in a team and to work in a disciplined setting. Even a student of class III would undertake commanding activity one day.

Every student gets a chance to command the entire school in the assembly. 

Every Saturday the school conducts GK competition or Dictation competition. 

There is also a shruti lekh competition. 

The students are given a pencil and a pen as a token prize on Monday. Last day of every month, there is a meeting of student union. The union invites teachers as observers. The decision of the union is implemented in the same month. There are two special functions on 26 January and 15 August, on this occasion parents are invited to the function. These functions are totally conducted by the students. A teacher has no say in these functions. Anchoring is done by class 4, 5, 6 students and they manage it to the last. The entire management of these events is looked after by the students. 

An incident which shows the level of student empowerment in the school where a new student called another student, KALIA. Immediately there was a meeting and decision taken and he had to apologise in the assembly, and it was all managed by the students. “Students conduct plays/dramas. At times they may forget their dialogues but the audience would never come to know about the fumble by the students as they manage it well. Students will spontaneously cook up the dialogues. 

A student leaves the school at 2PM. Then he works in a nearby shop for opening jute bags. He works with his mother there and earns about 15 rupees daily He then again comes to the school in the evening to take extra classes. He is one of the toppers in his class in spite of the work that he is doing. 

You come and throw your toffee wrapper in any corner of the school and you will find that some or the other student from some class come and pick up the wrapper and put it in dust bin. Students are from poor families and therefore they have to share their resources. In a class, typically, one or two students are able to bring sharpener or eraser, and they share it with all the students in the class. The students consider it their right to share their resources and ask others to share their resources. The students use innovative methods to use their resources. If their pencil is reduced, the students will attach it with some old ball pen cover and use it for writing. 

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The Students

Dr Rathore says, “I personally go to the homes of each students and ask their parents to send the student to the school. Most of the people in the locality recognise me as a passionate academician and recognise me as a person who is not going to permit a student to enjoy holidays.”

95% of the parents of the students are illiterate and therefore convincing them is not an easy task. Students can’t get any environment of education at their homes. In a typical school, the teachers give homework and assignments to the students and expect the students to complete it and present it the next day. As per Dr Rathore, the only way to ensure that the students complete their homework or self-study is by inviting these students to the school again in the evening so that they may complete their work.

When a student is irregular, Dr Rathore visits the home of the student and requests the parents to send the student regularly. Dr Rathore recalls an interaction with one of the parents, “I start from my home at 7AM and reach back at home at 8 PM. I don’t bother about my son and I don’t have time for him. I have no idea of what he has been doing” Dr Rathore therefore believes in going from home to home. If a student doesn’t come to class for a few days, he will himself go to the home of that student and would bring that student to the class. In the evening there are special free coaching classes for these poor students(from 4.30 to 8.30 PM). He along with his family contributed substantially to the development of the school. Renu Rathore(daughter of Mr. Girdhari Singh, who is practically illiterate and is working as a chowkidar), joined this school and scored above 80% marks every year inspite of helping her mother in animal husbandry, and is today placed well after completing her polytechnic and engineering. Surendra Singh (son of a chowkidar) joined this school and got 92% marks in Rajasthan Board in spite of involvement in other activities and missed the merit by a small margin. 

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The Growth

Dr Rathore went door to door for getting his first group of students. First, people had no motivation for education as such. Second, people didn’t trust a successful person coming from his calm, peacefully and luxurious life and working day and night for setting up a school and then charging a fee as low as Rs. 50 a month. He recalls comments of one parent: “It is good to meet you, but what will happen if you run away and your school is closed down, we will wait for 5 - 7 years, if you stay then only we will be able to trust you and the school.” But now it is a success story. Dr Rathore recalls plenty of complements that he receives for his school.

A number of colleagues helped the founder in getting some projects. One of the colleagues provided him with a UNICEF project, which was undertaken at the school level. Thus a start was made in right direction with blessings and support of friends and family along with parents of some of the students. 

Mr. Kan Singh (an Ex - Army Officer and a person who himself is running a good school) told after visiting the school, “I would like to get my own children admitted in this school rather than in my own school”.
The founder got support from his friends, colleagues and well-wishers in this noble cause.

• A Soil conservationist who visited the school as chief guest announced that he would like to give honorary services to this school and is very much interested in this school. He promised to devote every day 2 hours to the school.
• His colleague Mr. M.R. Khatri (a well-known professor of English language) used to come in the evening to motivate the students. 
• Dr. T. K. Jain, another colleague and friend of his developed a case study on the school and presented it at IIMA. 
• One of the students of the founder Mr. Sandeep Papriwal came to see the school and was extremely impressed by the school and donated Rs. 21000 for the school. 
• An NRI who saw the school and its social commitments decided to donate Rs. 1 lac for the development of the school.

Everyone who saw his efforts, appreciated it and wanted to help him. Noble cause and team work always gives the reward. The school had started with only 7 students and by the year end (1st year), the school was able to have a strength of 35 students. Today it has 600 students. It is not just a quantitative growth, it is fundamentally a quality oriented school and is constantly receiving complements from people for its quality. Parent of a girl child came and said: “I have now realized that this is how a school should be run and this is how the school can help the society” 

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The Realisation

It was started in 2002 by Dr N.S. Rathore – a Professor of economics. Initially it was started in a small rented place, which used to be a poultry farm. Dr Rathore converted the cabins into a make shift class rooms. From his savings of Rs. 10000, he started the school. Whatever savings he had, he would use that for the development of school. The philosophy of the founder was to give the poor children an opportunity to have good education. He tried to motivate the students to get education and go for higher learning. He used to narrate success stories of persons like Abdul Kalam to the students. The students were from poor family background and their parents were labourers or daily wage earners. Dr Rathore was the first person to motivate these students for education. 

In 2004, he purchased the rented place where the school was running. He then started construction of one room every year. His philosophy was to construct low cost building. He himself devised low cost construction technique and therefore the cost of construction of a room used to be very low (about Rs. 30000). Thus he was able to expand the school. In 2007-08, Dr Rathore purchased another piece of land adjoining the school. 

He borrowed some more money in his personal account and started construction of a well-designed building. In 2005-06, the school got affiliation for class VIII from Rajasthan Education Board and in 2008-09 it got affiliation for class X from the same board. 

There were a number of problems in the beginning, the founder recalls that it was difficult to pay the rent even as the furniture made for the students. There were difficulties even in arranging funds for payment to the teachers. 

As the prime objective of the school was to help poor students, the fee was very low. The initial fee was Rs. 50 per month, and there were only 7 students in the beginning. The founder had no budget, all he had was a dream and a craving to go for that dream. All that he could think of was that urge to get the ball rolling and see that the school is on track of its growth and acceptance in a backward area. Dr Rathore was prepared to pay from his pocket and he continues to do so till now. 

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The Dream

Social entrepreneurship is not about money, nor about risk taking. It is all about passions and dreams. It is for those, who have a mission in their heart and want to bring about transformation in society. Text books say that there should be a business plan, there should be plan for marketing, finance, production and human resource management and then the entrepreneur should contact funding agencies to start some social institution or organisation. However, cases like Dr. Rathore demonstrate that all it requires is a mission and the zeal to achieve that mission. Adversities, social problems and social issues create a fertile ground for social entrepreneurs, who do not wait for funding agencies or venture capitalists to start. They see the issues and just start. Their actions speak and they are able to get a team with them, who also share similar mindset. This is a dream that Dr. Rathore had, to establish a school for the poor. The process adopted by Dr. Rathore is not copied from any text book, but based on ground work and innovations which spontaneously emerge from the field work. It is for the children from those families are very - very poor. Located in Shiv Colony (Bikaner) where mostly labourers and daily wage earners have settled down. Most of the people in the area are illiterate and belong to lower class. The other nearby areas are: Ambedkar colony, Harizan Basti, Shiv Bari. In an area, where most of the residents are illiterate, Dr. N.S. Rathore made a pioneering effort by starting a school. It is not just a school, but a mission for Dr. Rathore. He believes that education is the most powerful tool in the hands of poor persons to change their destiny. He is determined to see his dreams come true. He is passionate for this and goes from home to home to collect his students.

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