Meenakshi and Ajay Dalmia, and PaVan Iyengar are the highly-qualified co-founders of Drive Change Learning and Resource Centre (DLRC, estb. 2015), a unique K-12 “learning space” that may well redefine schooling through its inventive, experiential learning model strongly connected with nature and natural habitats.

Since DLRC admitted its first batch of two children ten years ago in a rented bungalow, enrolments have risen to 300 students mentored by 50 facilitators (teachers) prompting the promoter-managers to migrate the school to an eco-friendly one-acre farm-style campus in Susgaon, formerly a suburb of Pune (pop. 7.3 million), which has expanded into Maharashtra’s second largest industrial city after Mumbai.  

Newspeg. Last November, DLRC celebrated its tenth anniversary with a Decade Fair, a three-day festival during which students and facilitators’ work exhibits, learning stations, unique activities such as carpentry, embroidery, toy shows, cultural performances, and ‘Chai & Why’, a unique subject cafe for educators, were showcased. The DLRC management estimates the number of visitor footfalls at the Decade Fair at 1,300.

History. In 1994, Meenakshi (nee Garg), a physics graduate of Calcutta University, contracted a “traditional arranged marriage” with Ajay Dalmia, a business management graduate of Michigan University (USA) employed at the Detroit head office of Pitney Bowes, a transnational company engaged in SaaS shipping solutions, mailing innovations, and financial services to clients worldwide. Soon after their marriage, she moved to Detroit, USA, the automobiles manufacturing hub of America, where she graduated with a degree in automotive design. In the subsequent years she acquired Bachelors and Masters degrees in education from Boston University and gained valuable experience teaching in the American public school education system (2001-2004).

In 2005 to provide solace and comfort to her father following the death of her mother, the couple moved to Delhi where Ajay helped set up the India office of Pitney Bowes while Meenakshi served as a parent volunteer and teacher at the Aurobindo-inspired Mirambika School (‘a profound experience”). Two years later, when Ajay was transferred to Singapore, Meenakshi taught at the Singapore American School (2007-09), “perhaps the most well-resourced school worldwide”. In 2009, the experienced duo took a sabbatical in Bali, Indonesia where both worked for the now globally reputed Green School which was then in its nascent years — Ajay in business development and Meenakshi in teacher training and curriculum development.

In 2014 the couple moved back to India and settled in Pune. After their daughter Anjali expressed a wish to be home-schooled, they decided to put their experience of K-12 education acquired in the US, Singapore, and Bali to use and together with social activist Pavan Iyengar started DLRC in 2015 with seed funding of Rs.1 lakh each.

Direct talk. “DLRC is driven by the core philosophy of experiential learning involving head, heart, and hands. Our children learn by working in fields, and learn carpentry, welding, plumbing, and toy-making among other skills at our design lab from youngest age. Moreover, the school’s Enrichment Clubs enable children to explore subjects such as mosaic art, cooking, music, robotics, theatre, dance and a variety of sports and games including football, volleyball, and kabaddi. All this together with well-planned and structured academics. The campus design is eco-friendly with bio toilets, biogas, vermicompost, and rain water harvesting systems. Children learn in open classrooms without doors and windows to experience nature’s seasons as they learn. The syllabus we teach is not novel. The differentiating factor is how we teach, immersing children in nature and with a strong emphasis on continuous teacher development. The teacher pupil-ratio is 1:12 to ensure personal attention to every child,” says Meenakshi.

As DLRC is not a ‘registered’ school by government, this “learning space” cannot be affiliated with any national or state government examination board. Senior students write the Cambridge IGCSE and A level exams as private candidates. “Several of our graduates have been admitted into prestigious universities such as Ashoka, Oxford and MIT, Boston,” she says.

Future plans. Encouraged by enthusiastic public response to this hands-on learning approach, the school’s evangelist promoters are set to inaugurate a second campus at Nande, 5 km from DLRC, Susgaon, which will become operational in May this year. The entire senior school — classes IX-XII — will be shifted to the new campus which will be fully compliant with CBSE and Cambridge affiliation by-laws and as such will be a government recognised school. “As our name suggests, at DLRC our campus library and labs are open to the wider community. Every neighbourhood deserves a DLRC,” says Meenakshi. 

God speed.  

Paromita Sengupta