About R. K. Sharma

Rewari, and the science classroom

Rajender Kumar Sharma studied science at Maharshi Dayanand University, Rohtak, taking a B.Sc. in the medical stream and then a B.Ed. He began teaching in January 1994 at Jain Public School, an English-medium CBSE school in Rewari, where he was a science teacher and House In-charge and organised science exhibitions and cycle rallies on public awareness.

After a period at Sarvodaya High School in N. Mundi, a state-board school in rural Rewari district, he joined Cambridge School, Rewari, in July 2000 as Post Graduate Teacher in Biology. He stayed twelve years. In that time he became Head of the Science Department, Academic Coordinator and Examination In-charge, and finally Officiating Vice-Principal. His student teams won at the national level of the Science Exhibition of the Ministry of Non-Conventional Energy Sources in 2003, and received a National Award at the 17th National Children's Science Congress in Ahmedabad in 2009.

He kept studying through these years: an M.Ed. from Maharshi Dayanand University, an M.Sc. and then an M.Phil. in Zoology from Annamalai University, and an M.A. in Education from Periyar University.

Jagriti

Outside school hours, from the mid-1990s he served as president of Jagriti Yuva Sangathan, a youth organisation registered with the Government of Haryana and affiliated to the District Nehru Yuva Kendra. He was re-elected repeatedly, by unanimous vote, through 2009.

Jagriti's best-known undertaking was an annual talent search examination held on Haryana Day, which grew from Rewari district to five districts of South Haryana and, in 2001, drew about 1,400 students from some 70 schools. The organisation also ran free tailoring and vocational courses for women, competitions for children, relief collections, plantation drives and civic campaigns. The Nehru Yuva Kendra awarded him Certificates of Merit for best youth work in 1995 and 1999, and the Government of Haryana gave him the State Youth Award in 2002–03.

Read about Jagriti's work, drawn from the newspaper coverage of the time.

Head of school

In February 2013 he became Principal of GRD World School, an ICSE/ISC school in Dehradun. The school recorded 100% results in the ICSE and ISC examinations in 2014 and 2015 and hosted the state-level National Children's Science Congress in 2013.

Since June 2016 he has been Principal of Tatachem D.A.V. Public School in Mithapur, Gujarat, a school of more than 1,500 students in the Tata Chemicals township, managed by the DAV College Managing Committee. He is responsible for its academics, administration, finances, staff and pastoral care. The school has since set nine Guinness World Records and three national records, opened an Atal Tinkering Lab with a NITI Aayog grant, and been recognised nationally for its environmental education.

How he works

Read together, the record shows a pattern. Much of what he has organised involves everyone at once: the tree hug of 2016 brought together 1,316 students and staff, and the Save Birds campaign of 2017 every class from the third to the twelfth. Science runs through all of it, from the 2003 exhibition in Rewari to the children's science congresses he has supported in three states. Jagriti worked the same way — an examination open to every school in the region, prizes given in public, and books for the students who could not afford them.