Nawal Kishore Rastogi Rewari, January 18
Rao Birender Singh College of Education here, which is the first privately managed postgraduate teachers’ training institute of northern India, is celebrating its golden jubilee year this year.
Its founder president, Rao Birender Singh, has been a towering political personality of the Indira-era. The octogenarian Rao is a former Minister of Punjab, former Chief Minister of Haryana and former Union Agriculture Minister. It is no exaggeration that his far-sighted vision, sterling guidance and indefatigable efforts have enabled the college to carve a niche for itself among the prestigious teachers’ training institutes of north India.
Ever since its inception in 1953, the college has been in the forefront of quality teacher education and has produced over 25,000 trained teachers and hundreds of dedicated teacher educators, now serving in Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Rajasthan and other parts of the country. It is quite creditable that many of them have proficiently served and are still competently serving as directors of education, district education officers, principals, headmasters and university teachers.
It is another spectacular achievement of the college that some of its resourcefully talented alumni are now manning responsible positions in educational institutions of the USA, Australia, Canada, Yugoslavia, Tanzania and several other countries. This is why the college has now come to be recognised for its academic excellence, as also certified by the Vice-Chancellor of Maharshi Dayanand University, Rohtak.
In terms of infrastructure, the college is second to none. It has separate hostels for boys and girls, a spectacular campus, playgrounds, a fully upgraded computer lab, science, technological and work experience labs, a superb library, latest equipment, a seminar hall, an intercom system and dedicated and enlightened staff.
Fortunately, the college has found a dynamic principal in Prof M. R. Popli, who is genuinely proud of his four-decade-long treasured association with the college. He did his BEd. in 1966 and MEd in 1970 from this college and then became a lecturer here in 1974 following which he was elevated in 1991 to the principal’s post, which he most sincerely and efficiently continues to hold till date.
Making a specific mention of the salient features of the college, he told the ‘NCR Tribune’ that a research wing comprising 24
encyclopaedias and numerous rare reference books has been added to the college library, which also has 25,000 books on a single discipline of education. The research faculty of the college was open to outsiders as well. Besides, the college is also proud to have a guide, approved by MDU, Rohtak, to help research students and scholars. Secondly, the College has a fully stocked book bank, which has been providing books to almost all students in each and every session annually.
Prof M. R. Popli has also introduced a welfare scheme titled “Earn while you learn” for poor and needy students who are provided part-time lucrative assignments in the college during their spare hours.
It is a matter of pride that during the past 50 years, the college was visited by a host of great dignitaries of the country, including the late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, N. Sanjiva Reddy, Giani Zail Singh (both former Presidents of India), M. Hidayatulla (former Chief Justice of India), Gobind Ballabh Pant (former Union Home Minister), K. Kamaraj Nadar, V. K. Krishna Menon, Dr D. S. Kothari (former Chairman of the UGC.) and several others.
