All great things begin with small ideas. A teenager who used to struggle to go to high school and college located in distant places between 1980 and 1988, was determined to establish a good educational institution in his native Ranasthalam in Srikakulam district.
After 30 years, his dream was finally fulfilled in the form of NER School of Excellence, which celebrated its investiture ceremony for the academic year 2021-22 recently in Ranasthalam, located on the Viskhapatnam-Srikakulam national highway.
Lack of English medium education and absence of transport facility to reach the Government Junior College located 20 km away at Nellimarla of Vizianagaram district made Nadukuditi Eswara Rao to think big at young age. In spite of Telugu medium background, he improved his English and completed higher studies in Andhra University, Visakhapatnam, and the Indian Institute of Management Kolkata.
Later, he joined a corporate company in New Delhi as senior General Manager and became industrialist by establishing his own firms, thanks to his vision and command over his subjects such as finance and accounting. He received many awards from the government and other organisations for service activities in his native place. However, all these achievements could not provide him satisfaction, owing to the delay in fulfilling his dream to ensure quality education for rural students.
Opportunity in lockdown
The lockdown in 2020-21 provided him an opportunity to finalise his plans. As he was staying in his native place of Nadukuditipalem, near Ranasthalam, he contacted academicians on the establishment of the school. The initial response was not much encouraging from family members and well wishers as they feared that running a top class school needed full-time attention and disrupted all other responsibilities and business activities.
Another difficulty was roping the services of academicians and teachers at Ranasthalam. Fortunately, highly experienced teachers from Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, West Bengal and other States joined the school, thanks to Mr. Rao’s constant efforts.
After overcoming all initial hurdles, he constructed NER School of Excellence at Ranasthalam in over 10 acres of land. As part of ensuring overall development of children, Mr. Rao established digital classrooms, library, sports and other facilities on the premises.
“As we established the institution as part of our charitable activities, we fixed low and reasonable fee structure to meet the expenses and ensure smooth maintenance of the institution. So, common people can also admit their children in our school. Our aim is to make them as the best citizens in future and prove that students of rural areas are second to none,” Mr. Rao added.
