Page 6 - Glendale Group

HISTORY

milestones

orn in Chicago, Anjum graduated from Loyola University, Chicago with a honors degree in psy-
B chology and pressed on for a postgrad in education administration and instructional leadership at
the University of Illinois while doing a short stint as administrative manager of the College Preparatory
School of America, Chicago. In 1995 Anjum relocated to Hyderabad after her marriage with Salman,
son of the late Bashiruddin Babukhan (1943-2013), a highly respected former minister of higher edu-
cation and major industries in the government of undivided Andhra Pradesh. A committed believer
in the enabling power of education for upliftment of the socio-economically disadvantaged, in 1991
Bashiruddin promoted the co-ed Springfields School, Hyderabad, with the objective of enabling “all-
round development of children”.

In Hyderabad, together with husband Salman, also an alumna of Loyola University, Chicago and real
estate tycoon, Anjum put her blue-chip US education to efficacious use by immediately scaling and
contemporising the fast-developing city’s Springfields schools. Currently, the five Telangana state
board-affiliated Springfields schools have an aggregate 4,500 children mentored by 300 teachers on
their muster rolls.

After successfully upgrading the pearl city’s five Springfields schools and co-promoting the CBSE-af-
filiated Glendale Academy 17 years ago, in 2017, she promoted the CBSE-affiliated Springfields Inter-
national School, Hyderabad. “I am very grateful that my in-laws encouraged me with full freedom and
opportunity to put my American education to good use by enabling me to introduce new pedagogies
and curriculums for nurturing and developing the high-potential children of Hyderabad and Telan-
gana,” says Anjum whose special interests include art, dance, holistic healing, ikebana, photography,
reading, spirituality, travel and yoga.

In her lifelong quest for learning, Anjum simultaneously signed up for several programmes such as
Strategy in Action and Project Zero of the prestigious Harvard University, education leadership courses
of Cambridge University, UK and most recently a Design Thinking K-12 programme of the Stanford D.
School (USA). Anjum was the only representative from the subcontinent at Harvard University’s Think
Tank on Global Education in 2017 following which Glendale became India’s first school to integrate the
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals into its curriculum.

144 | 21 Leaders Transforming Indian Education