Lifetime Achievement in Education Leadership Award 2016 Dr. R. Vardarajan Citation Dr. R. Varadarajan is the widely respected founder-chairman of the Mumbai-based National Education Society (NES) and Saraswathi Vidya Bhavan (SVB) group of 62 educational institutions with an aggregate enrolment of 47,280 students and 1,820 teachers in Mumbai and Thane. An alumnus of Mumbai University awarded a Ph D in educational management by Diandra University, Italy, Dr. Varadarajan promoted his first primary school in Mumbai in 1963 with an enrolment of seven children. Currently, the NES-SVB group includes 18 K-12 schools including two IBO, Geneva affiliated NES International Schools, four junior colleges, two full-fledged degree colleges affiliated with Mumbai University and a B.Ed college affiliated with SNDT University, Mumbai. Driven by the objective of providing high-quality affordable English-medium kindergarten-college education to middle class households in the neglected suburbs of India’s commercial capital, under Varadarajan’s leadership, NES and SVB trusts have educated, trained and certified 28,000 class X and 25,000 class XII school-leavers, and 15,000 graduates who have contributed significantly to the growth and development of the Indian economy. One of India’s most celebrated educationists, Dr. Varadarajan has been conferred several awards including the Best Teacher Award (1994) by the President of India and the Dronacharya Award (1996) by the Maharashtra state government. Moreover, in 1995 the Union government issued a special postal stamp to commemorate the NES-SVB groups 30 years of service to Indian education. For his extraordinary contribution to the growth and development of Indian education, particularly for his commitment to providing internationally benchmarked values-driven school and tertiary education in all NES-SVB institutions for the past five decades, the Board of Directors and Editors of EducationWorld are privileged to present Dr. R. Varadarajan the EW Lifetime Achievement in Education Leadership Award 2016, and induct him into the EW Hall of Fame of Indian Education.
