Hukum Singh Uniyal has donated the prize money of Rs 50,000 he received from the President on the occasion of Teachers’ day, to the school he is working in. He made this declaration while addressing a function organised to honour him at Rajkeeya Purva Madhyamik Vidhyalaya, Rajpur road on Sunday. An emotional Uniyal recounted the effort he had put in to save the government school he was first appointed as Principal in the year 2008 from closure and convert it to a famous residential school with the help of community participation. He said that when the joined the school it had only three students- though eight were enrolled- and the school building was in a dilapidated condition. “Short of funds I spent a sum of Rs 4.56 lakh taken from my personal savings and burrowed from my friends on renovation of the school building. later, I requested my department officers to allow me to convert the school into a residential one. I gave admissions to the weak students who were dined admission elsewhere and those who had left studies in absence of family support. My wife took charge of cooking meals for the students and my daughter who was in college assumed responsibility of warden. Things were very difficult as I was running the school without any financial assistance from government but later some well wishers offered help. The number of students in the school started increasing and many people and social organisations came forward for help. Now the 185 students belonging to very poor families reside in the hostel and these students are now at par with students of private schools,’’ he said.
The organizations like Rotary and Making A Difference (MAD) are helping the school now. The volunteers of MAD even help students in their studies after school hours. The management of prestigious Saint Joseph’s school is also quite generous in providing furniture, stationery and books and has even thrown open its laboratories to the students of deprived sections of the society.
Uniyal said that after receiving the President’s award he feels more responsibility on his shoulders. He said that the education department should earmark one school in each block of Dehradun and run it on the model of this school.
Uniyal said that he is ready to serve in these schools so that they can be successfully operated.
Speaking on the occasion, the District Education Officer of Dehradun, M S Bisht said that Uniyal has set up very high standards of dedication towards his work and now his school is now a model for others. He said that Uniyal has shown what efforts of one man can do. Famous educationist and Pioneer of famous Maiti movement, Kalyan Singh Rawat said that Uniyal spends more than 12 hours a day with his students and has shown that what community participation can do.
large number of people from different sections of society was present in the programme.