Combining contemporary international pedagogies with India’s ancient gurukul traditions, Tula’s International School, Dehradun has quickly established a good reputation – Autar Nehru

Sited on an eco-friendly 30-acre campus in Dhoolkot village, 20 km from the K-12 education hub of Dehradun, the new age co-ed wholly residential Tula’s International School (TIS, estb. 2013), is fast earning a reputation for providing excellent academic, co-curricular and sports education, as also pastoral care to its students. In the recently published EducationWorld India School Rankings 2018-19, the low-profile Tula’s International School, Dehradun is ranked among India’s Top 40 co-ed boarding schools and #8 in Uttarakhand which hosts some of the country’s most respected boarding schools including The Doon School and Welham Boys (Dehradun), and St. George’s College (Mussoorie). Affiliated with the Delhi-based Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), this fully-residential class V-XII school has 200 students mentored by 50 teachers on its muster rolls.

Promoted by real estate tycoon Sunil Kumar Jain under the aegis of Rishab Educational Trust which has also established Tula’s Institute of Engineering & Management College (estb. 2006) in Dehradun, TIS’ mission statement is to “offer well-rounded academic excellence through quality education and learning experiences”.

“In the early 2000s my father S.K. Jain was associated with the activities of the Lions Club of India and as such was inspired to promote Tula’s Institute of Engineering in 2006. Encouraged by the enthusiastic public response to our engineering college, in 2013 we decided to promote a full-fledged residential school to provide internationally benchmarked education rooted in Indian culture and values,” says Raunak Jain, a business management postgrad of Royal Holloway University, London and director of TIS.

The distinguishing feature of the five-year-old TIS is that it combines contemporary international pedagogies with India’s ancient gurukul traditions. “TIS is a modern day gurukul where students and their gurus live and learn together in a stimulating, non-stressful environment. I believe it’s this unique combination of the time-tested gurukul tradition with 21st century academic pedagogies which has quickly won TIS an excellent reputation as one of the best co-ed boarding schools in Uttarakhand,” says Shalini Sharma, an alumnus of Meerut’s Chaudhury Charan Singh and Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal (Uttarakhand) universities who was appointed principal of TIS in July 2016.

According to Sharma, the gurukul concept has been fully integrated into the school’s teaching-learning process with self-learning students consulting with teachers in specially designed subject classrooms/workstations to resolve specific difficulties. “Tula’s is the only CBSE school in North India which has subject specific classrooms with hi-tech workstations to enable hands-on learning. The workstations are equipped with state-of-the-art projection systems, interactive white boards, high-speed wireless Internet connectivity and learning aids,” she explains.

To provide this alternative style of primary-secondary education, the Rishab Educational Trust has invested heavily in state-of-the-art infrastructure. The school’s 30-acre campus located adjacent to Tula’s Engineering Institute, is designed by Delhi-based architect Viresh Goel and provides eight SMART classrooms, well-equipped science labs, a computer lab with 30 PCs and Internet connectivity, a library with 12,000 book titles and over 30,000 online resources, separate hostels for girl and boy students, staff quarters, a 250-seats dining hall, an open-air amphitheatre and an infirmary staffed by two nurses and visiting doctors.

Moreover in keeping with the best traditions of India’s legacy boarding schools, sports facilities are extensive and include a horse riding arena, gymnasium, synthetic basketball, tennis and squash courts, soccer field, billiards, badminton, table tennis, taekwondo, and a volleyball court. A swimming pool is under construction and will become operational soon. In addition, TIS students have access to the cricket ground and 500-seat auditorium of the adjacent engineering college. The school’s well-designed open spaces and landscaped lawns and gardens provide opportunities for quiet study and contemplation.

The wide range of sports facilities and activities are complemented by a palette of extra-curricular activities and student clubs. Among them: art and crafts (clay modeling, sketching and sculpture), music and dance, cinematography, book reading, dance, photography and culinary clubs. Moreover to enable students to develop international outlook and promote transnational learning and exchange of ideas, TIS has signed student and teacher exchange partnerships with 13 foreign institutions including Trinity College, London, University of Texas, Dallas, and the Italian University of Design.

With TIS having quickly established itself as a progressive fully-residential co-educational school, the top management is determined to impact this “progressive school with a difference” nationally. From the next academic year, TIS will offer its students the curriculum of the UK-based Cambridge Assessment International Education. “We will give our students a choice between the CBSE and CAIE curriculums in the academic year 2019-20. And I am confident that TIS will attain our full capacity of 450 students within two years,” says Raunak Jain.

ADMISSION & FEES

Tula’s International School, Dehradun is a CBSE-affiliated class V-XII co-educational boarding school. Admission applications are available from November to March and admission is based on an entrance test.

Fees (including board & lodging): Rs.6-8 lakh per annum

For details contact TIS, Dhoolkot, P.O. Selaqui, Chakrata Road, Dehradun 248011. Ph: 0135 2699444; email: info@tis.edu.in; website: www.tis.edu.in