Meet 70-year-old Keshav Saran who singlehandedly built a school in Rampur, teaching 1,200 students

Turkish statesman and author Mustafa Kemal Atatürk wrote, “A good teacher is like a candle – it consumes itself to light the way for others.”

And why not? Teachers have a huge impact on our lives. Not only do they educate us, but they also help us realise our full potential. This Teachers’ Day, we are taking a look at one such teacher who changed thousands of lives for the better.

Meet Keshav Saran, 70, who exemplifies this in the true sense. Born in Khardia, a quaint village in the Rampur district of Uttar Pradesh, Keshav took to farming when he was only 15. Right from ploughing the land, planting seeds, irrigating, and maintaining the crops to harvesting them, he did it all.

Since the nearest school was 25 km away from the village, Keshav couldn’t study beyond class 9 as a lack of transportation facilities made it impossible for him to travel to school on a daily basis.

However, knowing the value and importance of education, Keshav did something different. Instead of giving up on it entirely, he decided to take action. With the little knowledge he had, he started teaching science, mathematics, and literature to the village children.

In no time, around 200 students were crammed into his small two room house, patiently listening to Keshav. Then, in 1989, he decided to set up a school on his farmland. Today, more than 1,200 children are getting educated at this school in Khardia.

“I did not want any other child in my village to go through the same problem that I faced. My goal was to make education accessible to everyone and I am glad I have been able to pull it off to a certain extent,” Keshav Saran tells YourStory.

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Keshav Saran’s enlivening journey

Rampur district has a literacy rate of only 53.3 percent, according to Census 2011. One of the main reasons for this high drop-out rates was because several children quit school due to the inconvenience of travelling long distances.

When Keshav learnt that this trend has been going on for years, he decided to take responsibility. Going from door to door in the locality, he persuaded parents to send their children to his house so that he could teach them.

“It was not an easy journey. I used to grow potatoes, chillies, and onions all morning and teach every evening. But seeing the eager faces of the children, it was all worth it,” says Keshav.

Unable to manage the inflow of students, he started a primary school in 1989, obtaining the necessary approvals from the local panchayat as well as the government bodies for children to pursue their education from classes one to four. This was later ramped up to class 10 in 2007, and class 12 in 2013. The institute was initially called Keshav School but was later renamed to Keshav Inter College. 

“The only way for me to establish the school was by setting it up on my farmland. There was no way I could earn money to buy a fresh piece of land. A lot of people thought I was crazy since I was ready to let go of a huge source of personal income. However, I went ahead with it. I sold a part of the one-acre agricultural land I owned to flesh out some liquid cash for the construction, retained a small portion to sustain myself and my family, and made the rest of it available for the school,” says Keshav.

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Moulding the lives of a thousand children

Keshav’s passion for teaching and desire to educate children in Khardia led him to give up his own comforts. But, the fruits of his endeavour is evident even today.

“Many students who have passed out of the school are doing extremely well for themselves today. While some have completed engineering, others are pursuing MBBS, and a few others have already bagged good jobs in metropolitan cities. I could not have asked for anything better,” the 70-year-old signs off.

(Edited by Saheli Sen Gupta)

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