Retired Principal Democratizing Education in Kerala’s Most Backwards Areas

K Vijayasekharan, a retired principal from Kerala truly believes that education is the birthright of everyone. His efforts to bring education in one of the most backward areas of the state are truly remarkable. While serving his tenure in KKM HSS school in Vandithavalam, he started giving tuitions to the students of pre-matric hostel for free at his own house every morning and evening. The pre-matric hostel was run by scheduled castes and tribes welfare departments.

The Beginning

At a point of time he used to give tuitions to around 100 students, all of whom have become extremely successful today, many are even employed overseas. All his students have extremely benefitted from his free tuition classes. M Krishnadas, a former student of his, became the first person of the tribal community to crack the national GATE exam and is now pursuing MTech from IIT-Palakkad. Before the coronavirus pandemic, the hostel had close to around 50 students. On learning about this, some of his former students decided to give something back to their guru and that’s how the Synthesizers Educational and Charitable Trust came to life. All of his former students set up a two-storied building on the residential premises by pooling in the resources they had. The facility could accommodate up to 75 students with a lot of space in different rooms. It also had an A grade library which got its assistance from the Library Council.

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He retired from the KKM HSS school as the principal of the school in 2015. Even after retiring he regularly used to visit the pre-matric hostel just like he had been visiting there since 1990. K Vijayasekharan states that the students of the hostel belonged to the tribal areas of Attapadi, Walayar, Prambikulam, they rarely used to go to their homes. So most of their vacation was spent studying in the hostel only. The teacher expresses a sense of fulfilment in recalling the events when the students used to sit in the compound and study.

Nelson Mandela once said that ‘education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.’ K Vijayasekharan truly is a living example who believes in this mentality and the whole world needs to realize that even the smallest of efforts can make a great impact on the society as a whole.

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