The Rehmani Model School, in the Walled City area in Jaipur is a model not just in its name, but also in communal harmony. Having risen to a school from a madrassa, it caters to the educational needs of 1,300 students of the minority community.
A principal who was earlier affiliated to RSS’s Aadarsh Vidhya Mandir is now mentoring students at a school that was once a madarsa. Kailash Chandra Yadav has become the first non-Muslim principal at Rehmani Model School, which had its first non-Muslim teacher in 1995.
The children studying in the school belong to the minority community and come from lower-middle class families. Though the school board comprises of Muslim members, several teachers are Hindu, according to the report.
“Having worked in Aadarsh Vidhya Mandir, it seemed almost weird to work for a ‘Muslim’ school, located in a `Muslim’ locality. However, that feeling passed soon. Students are students irrespective of their religion and education is important for all,” Yadav.
He said that, yadav and his team of teachers have a much larger task at hand than just teaching. “Financial condition of some students is so bad that the parents stop sending them. The parents have to be convinced to send their children as they think education is not important.”
Talking about the non-Muslim teachers, he says, “To me the educational qualification of teachers matters, not their affiliations or their religion. At our school, we celebrate Eid but do not forget to greet each other during Holi and Diwali.”