Arun Kapur, Director, The Royal Academy, Bhutan. Chairman, Ritinjali, India (Part 2)
We are here with another episode with the visionary Arun Kapur. In the last episode, we talked about Arun’s early life. He talks to us about how he set up the Vasant Valley School and its foundations. In this episode, he talks to us about how he set up Pallavan preschool for kids below 4 years of age.
Podcast
Overview
We are here with another episode with the visionary Arun Kapur. In the last episode, we talked about Arun’s early life. He talks to us about how he set up the Vasant Valley School and its foundations. In this episode, he talks to us about how he set up Pallavan preschool for kids below 4 years of age. He then shares a little about another of his institutions called Ritinjali which is a sanskrit word for the term “Helping Hands”. Arun tells us that it is a second chance school, for people who haven’t got the opportunities to learn in their childhood. It is a great initiative started for the underprivileged/deprived young adults. Arun then talks to us about his role in The Royal Academy of Bhutan which is a school that focuses on the holistic development of children. Arun emphasizes that everyone should learn throughout the journey of life. Tune in to find more!
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Profile
Arun Kapur is an educator with more than four decades of experience in the global spheres of public and private education. After completing his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in History from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University, India, he worked as a teacher and Housemaster for more than a decade in the Doon School in Dehradun, India. In 1990, Arun Kapur became the founding Headmaster of Vasant Valley School in Delhi, which became India’s leading co-educational day school. Since 2008, he has been heading The Royal Academy in Bhutan, an initiative of His Majesty the King of Bhutan.
Arun Kapur is the founder and Chairman of Ritinjali, an NGO which was established in 1995 to catalyse community development among marginalized communities in India. In 2001, he created a network of Pallavan schools for pre-primary education, as well as the Pallavanjali school for inclusive education of diverse learners. In 2008, he founded Pallavan School in Jhalawar, Rajasthan, India, and following that, he founded Pallavan Learning Systems, an educational research organization. In 2018, he began working with the Ministry of Education, Sultanate of Oman, to help establish the Paradise Valley Private School in Muscat which, like his schools in India, mainstreams inclusive education. He is also the chairman of Centre for Escalation of Peace that creates platforms and programmes to encourage the free exchange of ideas across borders.
Arun Kapur has authored the books Transforming Schools: Empowering Children (Sage Publications, 2007) and Leading Out: The True Purpose of Education (Ritinjali, 2011), which focus on his educational philosophy of wholistic development in Five Areas (Cerebral, Emotional, Physical, Social and Spiritual), and describes self-directed learning as the ideal basis of education for actualizing one’s innate, dynamic potential. His latest book, Serene Strength (Ritinjali, 2020) explores the role of education in the making of a Person of Substance tempered with Serene Strength.
Arun Kapur has worked with learners from all age groups and all sections of society, and with his deep understanding of learners and conviction that education is the best route to self-actualization, he has made tremendous contributions to the global field of education. His curriculum of The Five Areas of Development has been recognized by the HundrED organisation of Finland as one of the 100 most inspiring global educational innovations for four consecutive years since 2017. In December 2019, Arun Kapur was awarded the Druk Thuksey Award by His Majesty The King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck for his rich contributions to education in Bhutan.
