An alumnus of the University of Calcutta, a chartered biologist, environmentalist and educationist trained under the leadership of Dr. Eleanor Duckworth of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Dr. Arup Mukhopadhyay is the Imphal-based Director of the Unacco Group of Schools, Manipur. Unacco Group comprises four CBSE-affiliated schools in Manipur with an aggregate enrolment of 6,200 boys and girls mentored by 417 teachers. In a career in K-12 education that began in 1990 at the Mirambika School, Delhi run by Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Mukhopadhyay has served for 33 years with 11 progressive multicultural international for profit and non-profit schools in India, South-east-Asia, the Middle-East and Africa. Among them: the top-ranked Rishi Valley School (KFI), Chittoor, and the Science Education Centre, Maldives. In his long and distinguished career, Arup has been the Founder-Executive Director of Royal Global School, Guwahati, Founder-CEO of Imperial School, Tanzania, Dar-es-Salaam, a high-end boarding school, and the Rungta Group of Schools, Chhattisgarh. Moreover, he is also an education consultant advising the Aga Khan Education Service in Tanzania, East Africa, and Bandhan Bank, India. That’s not all. He is also Executive-Director of Taktse International School, Gangtok (Sikkim), a registered Centre for Cambridge and SAT, as well as on the Board of Directors of the Chartered Institute of Educational Resource Management, Nigeria. “My prime interest as an educator is to introduce progressive new age primary-secondary education in the under-served areas of India and developing countries. My prime objective as an educator is to generate love of learning in schools. This is a pre-condition of raising teaching-learning standards in educationally under-served communities in developing countries of the third world. It requires shaping collective leadership that provides balanced academic, co-curricular and sports education that children need for their mental and emotional well-being. During the recent ethnic violence in Manipur, we ensured that each and every one of our students received study materials delivered at their doorstep so that learning never stops” says Dr. Mukhopadhyay. A widely acknowledged expert on progressive education, over the past decade Arup has been invited as a keynote speaker to the World Education Summit, New Delhi, 2019, the African Leadership Summit in Dar-es-Salaam (2017-2020), Asian Summit on Education and Skills, Delhi from 2018 onwards and the IDA and UAE Education Summit on Year of Innovation & Creativity in Dubai (2016). In off-duty hours, he is an avid trekker, rock-climber and wildlife photographer. In acknowledgement of his promotion, growth and development initiatives in educationally under-served communities in India, South-East Asia, Middle East and Africa, the Editors and Board of Directors of EducationWorld are pleased to present Dr. Arup Mukhopadhyay the Extraordinary Achievement in Education Leadership Award 2023-24. Also read: Lifetime Achievement in Education Leadership Award 2023-24: Dr. Larry Arnn
