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Education

Education is where much of my work begins. I founded Dunes Academy in Aau in 2014 so that village children in the Thar could get the kind of schooling city children take for granted.

About this topic

Why a school in Aau

The idea behind Dunes Academy was simple: a complete, disciplined education close to home, so that children would not have to leave the village to get one. We opened in 2014 with classes from Class 2 upward and grew one step at a time. Today Dunes Academy is a CBSE-affiliated, co-educational day and residential school teaching Nursery to Class XII, with supervised boarding from Class IV.

Good marks matter, but they are not the whole job. The school sets out to build character, critical thinking and life skills alongside strong academics, and sport is part of everyday school life, from basketball to a girls’ cricket team. Students from the school and its athletics centre have gone on to represent the state and the nation.

I serve as President of the Dunes Academy Education Society and Chairman of its Managing Committee. Running a rural school raises questions that city schools rarely face: how to bring new tools such as artificial intelligence into classrooms, how to keep standards high with limited resources, and how to earn the trust of parents who are choosing a school close to home over one in a city.

These pages are where I write about those questions and what we have learned. For admissions, fees and other school enquiries, please contact Dunes Academy directly.

Education articles