Page 56 - EducationWorld August 2022

People

Indefatigable orphan children's champion faced by my mother to provide for
me — I was an only child — and the
deprivations I suffered made me
sensitive to the plight of children
without any parents at all, and I
resolved to start a free-of-charge
residential school for orphaned and
marginalised children,” recalls Rao.
Steadfast in intent, after gradu-
ation he worked in industry for 12
years with Suven Pharmaceuticals
and Lokesh Mechanics, and at age 33
registered NICE Society in the mil-
lennium year. In 2002, he started the
eponymous school in Mynampadu
with an investment of Rs.85,000
mobilised from his savings and pro-
ceeds of sale of his ancestral home in
neighbouring Bollapally village and
admitted his first batch of ten orphan
children in a 400 sq. ft building.
NICE School children & teachers: pandemic shadow. Inset: P.C. Rao Since then, the school has grown into
a full-fledged K-10 English-medium
n indefatigable champion of in 2021-22 because of the pandemic. boarding school whose 48,000 sq.
orphaned and marginalised Simultaneously, our annual income ft main block houses 12 classrooms.
Achildren, P. PURNACHAN — the school is entirely dependent Moreover, the two-acre campus
DRA RAO is the promoter (founder- on donations — dipped from Rs.1.48 hosts a library with 4,500 volumes,
secretary) of the Needy Illiterate crore to Rs.1.05 crore. But with the science and maths labs, a 1.2-acre
Children Education (NICE) School school having reopened on June 1 for sports field and separate hostels for
(estb.2002). Sited in Mynampadu the new academic year 2022-23, we girls and boys.
village (pop.5,900), an hour’s drive have welcomed 80 new students of Inevitably, resource mobilisation
from Guntur (pop.800,000), NICE is whom 60 children are from educa- for continuous capacity expansion
a free-of-charge K-10 English-medi- tionally neglected tribal areas who and campus upgradation required
um residential school affiliated with desperately need good quality educa- strenuous and sustained fund-raising
the Delhi-based Central Board of tion,” says Rao. effort. Travelling mainly on a bat-
Secondary Education (CBSE) which Moreover, the pain of the pan- tered scooter, during the two past
has 24,000 upscale schools coun- demic has been assuaged by NICE decades, Rao has connected with
trywide affiliated with it. NICE has School having recorded its best-ever over 100,000 individuals to build a
200 children including 50 girls — 70 pass percentage in the CBSE board donor base of 750 corporates, trusts
percent of whom are orphaned — on exam written in April this year. The and individuals.
its muster rolls. school’s cohort of 24 children who Direct talk. “Our per-child expendi-
Newspeg. NICE is celebrating its wrote the exam averaged 69 per- ture including education, board and
20th anniversary this year in sombre cent with the topper averaging 94 lodging is Rs.27,000 per year. Dur-
circumstances. For the first time in percent. ing the past decade, we have gradu-
its history, the aggregate number History. Born into a family of small ated over 350 students who are now
of students has declined and the farmers, Rao suffered the early mis- well-placed as software engineers,
school’s income has fallen because of fortune of losing his father when he chartered accountants, among other
Covid-10 pandemic disruption of the was only four years of age, and had professions,” says Rao.
economy. to depend on the generosity of village Future plans. For the current fiscal
The forced and unduly long elders to complete his school educa- year, Rao has set a fund raising
closure (275 days in 2020) because tion. Subsequently, he funded his target of Rs.1.5 crore. “Because of the
of the Covid lockdown, has cast a higher education by working part- pandemic and also due to changes in
shadow over this residential school’s time and graduated from Nagarjuna FCRA regulations which require too
celebrations. “In 2019-20, we had University, Guntur with a degree in much documentation from foreign
270 children. This number fell to 150 English literature. “The hardships donors, there was a sharp drop in do-

56 EDUCATIONWORLD AUGUST 2022