Outstanding Achievement in Education Leadership Award 2017

Dr. Jagdish Gandhi

Citation

In 1959, Jagdish Gandhi, then a 23-year-old newly married commerce postgrad student at Lucknow University, started a primary school with a borrowed capital of Rs.300 and an initial enrolment of just five students. In the 58 years since, the City Montessori School has grown into the world’s largest single city K-12 school with an aggregate enrolment of 55,400 children learning in 18 campuses across Lucknow. This exponential growth in the school’s enrolment is acknowledged by the Guinness World Records which has certified CMS as the World’s Largest School. 

Yet, CMS is not only unique for being the world’s largest co-ed day school whose students routinely top the classes X and XII school-leaving exams of the Delhi-based Council for Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE). Every year the school hosts 28 co-curricular events of global scale because Dr. Gandhi is a great believer in education in its broadest sense. Inspired by the ancient Indian philosophy of vasudhaiv kutumbakam — ‘the world is my family’ — and by a Unesco statement that “wars begin in the minds of men, and it is in the minds of men where the defences of peace must be constructed”, every year the school hosts these international events to teach children from around the world to live in peace and harmony. These events include competitions and olympiads on computing, robotics, mathematics, geography, biotechnology, English literature, history, several sports, etc, and a unique annual International Conference of Chief Justices of the World which mobilises and inspires the global judiciary to create a world safe for the world’s 2 billion children. Since 2001, 1,002 chief justices and judges of Supreme and high courts from 125 countries worldwide have participated in this annual conference. 

For his services to Indian education, and particularly for his relentless pursuit of global peace through education, Dr. Gandhi has received a plethora of awards from around the world. Among them are: the Yash Bharati Award of the Uttar Pradesh government (2014); the Gusi Peace Prize of the Philippines (2011); the Hope of Humanity Award by the Dalai Lama (2010); the Key to the City of Georgetown, USA (2002). Moreover in 2002, CMS was awarded the Unesco Prize for Peace Education, the only school in the world ever to win this recognition. 

Despite CMS’ stature as the world’s largest school and the international accolades and honours he has received, Dr. Gandhi lives a simple life in the same rented room in which he began his work and channels CMS’ surpluses for the nurturance and development of children who, he believes, can shape a better world. 

In acknowledgement of his extraordinary contribution to K-12 education in India, and for developing and nurturing the City Montessori School into the world’s largest K-12 school, and for his sustained efforts to promote global peace, the Board of Directors and Editors of EducationWorld are pleased to confer the Outstanding Achievement in Education Leadership Award 2017 upon Dr. Jagdish Gandhi and induct him into the EducationWorld Hall of Fame of Indian Education. 

Also read: CMS sets Guinness World Record for having over 50k students