Dr. R Kishore - Beyond Authority, Towards Stewardship

What began as a personal choice soon became a lifelong mission for Dr. R. Kishore Kumar. Moving beyond his early ambitions in medicine, he embraced education as a space for service, integrity, and meaningful impact. For over four decades, his leadership has nurtured generations of learners rooted in compassion, resilience, and social responsibility. Mentor Magazine traces his journey from his aspirations to his leadership.

From One Noble Profession to Another

As a young man of 20 in 1980, I abandoned my aspirations from becoming a doctor, and chose to become a school teacher, only to emerge strong as an educational leader, an academician and a nation builder, continuing to contribute in the field of school education even now in a bigger way.

My pure love towards my father made me accept this change. I never regretted this decision but felt blessed. My relationship with my father as a son and later as his employee, built in me a resonance, resilience, and unadulterated resourcefulness that created my forte in the field of school education for four decades, ruled by my heart and my mind.

Inherited & Created Values

The golden years that I had spent with my father etched in me an unshakable confidence, strong mind, integrity, spiritual well-being, basic financial ethics, strategic planning and always standing for schools that can mould and shape next generation as global citizens with Indian roots. No university or institution in the world would have taught me these unparalleled lessons like the way my father did. At times I too had a chance to teach my father the right ways of addressing some issues, segregating the non-issues from the main issues and how to govern today’s schools. Is it what we call “Personalised Learning”!

My experience has today helped me with a focus for drafting both the working and invisible curriculum today, gathered from real life situations, an avalanche of changes and recent trends in education, the emerging global markets, and how education is looked upon as the emerging route map in the developed countries.

Authority v/s Stewardship

Right from the first day of my profession, I had felt that I will never hold authority but stewardship only. For, I know when we come into the public domain, there is no place for authority. The position that I owned is not to dispel “authority” but to discharge “stewardship”.

Educational management does not have power to command and extract discipline to dispel authority but needs the right mind-set to take up stewardship only. Stewardship can provide responsible management and facilitate more care in a place that belongs to the community and society. I always believed that the schools I establish and serve are not under my control but come under my custody. This weltanschauung elevates me to function with more reasoning, realistic thinking and strategic planning as all our executions need to be validated, long-standing and futuristic.

Beyond Long Shadows

I know I belong to the school that I founded but the school doesn’t belong to me.

My desire is not to establish a school that serves me or my needs, but a school that will serve the society in particular and by large the young generations year after year, decade after decade and centuries after centuries. These lofty ideals help me draft a vision statement, and my mission is to govern at least the early years to take the purpose of the light-house to a greater range and serve the diverse society through decades.

I have ensured that the needs and educational attributes are well brought in and drafted in the constitution of the school! It’s dynamic and paves way for yearly, short-term and long-term goals of the emerging educational empire! I am sure that the expectations of the stakeholders – parents, mentors and students – in the generations to come will reflect the emerging needs of the country and the world. I have strived that my leadership never overshadows my personal aspirations but always satisfies those as a true teacher for eternal growth and not time bound.

Strong Culture

Any institution has to face challenges in some area or other. During such periods (like COVID) the focus will always remain on the well-being of our students safety, security, health , mental well-being, academic tenacity, the affinity of students to its alma mater, and the parent’s confidence on the management and leadership.

Under my leadership, we will never let the reputation of the school suffer, for I believe strongly in lifelong reputation than incidental reputation. During the pandemic, we never deducted staff salaries, and we only collected the discounted school fee as regulated by the state government of Tamil Nadu.

Scores and ranks are by-products, not the measure of our success. We focus on nurturing well-rounded individuals prepared for life in all its dimensions. Our students, now musicians, athletes, doctors, entrepreneurs, and leaders, reflect the values and purpose of our “Learning for Life” philosophy.

Personal Compass Pointers

• The child/student comes first in all circumstances. 

• Payment of fee doesn’t matter if parents are going through a tough time financially.

• Our norms are broken when we want to see any students’ passion for learning any language (Indian or International languages) be it one student or two

•  Any child with any amount of learning disorder is admitted with conviction. We may increase the required special faculties like Student Counsellors / Special Educators / Sports Coaches/ Nutritionists if the need arises. 

• Games have no limitations when students are passionate to master a new sport.

• We always extend our fullest support to our students in their crisis, be it medical leave, parental disputes, ailments that are rare and which need our care & concern. 

• There are occasions when we set more than 5 sets of questions beyond the normal numbers for assessments, even when they have difficulties to sit for the exam on the same date due to many reasons, provided they are acceptable! 

• We may even shift the goal posts when students are in their best move to kick the ball as we believe the process of learning is more important than learning itself.
  

Technological Innovations

The future belongs to those who embrace change, one who believes in technological innovation, integrating artificial intelligence and testing the emerging trends with the global undisputed needs of tomorrow! When I strongly adhere to the circular from CBSE for our students’ national level competitions, I will never let my students down when it comes to their futuristic educational and technological growth.

Our school has modern infrastructural facilities including a high-tech Space Education Lab, STEM Lab, Computer Studios, English Communication Lab, Home Science Lab, Reference Library, and Audio Visual Lab, with smart boards in all classrooms. Our curriculum embraces rich experiences of the past, present trends, and a futuristic roadmap. We deliver strong values, basic skills, courtesy, and integrity, along with work skills, competencies, mental well-being, and top-notch STEM, Robotics, Coding, Space Education, and AI tools for tomorrow’s life and career plans.

Distractions

Distractions today have grown in number. An information overload on social media is blinding young minds, which if not attended to, might lead to numerous issues, unsolvable in future. 

We have designed well-structured healing and protective touches as a part of the learning curriculum. Children are exposed to practical and structured life-skill and value driven courses like School Cinema. Art & music are compulsory inclusions, physical training is mandatory, and such periods are never ever diverted to teach core subjects.

Our faculty constitutes specialised teachers to handle student counselling. We have extensive library based activities with additional “Privilege Library Periods” beyond school hours. Spelling championships are conducted, “Classroom Wall Magazine” and “Class Magazine” documents are published for all 75 Sections of the whole school. Our philosophy is to prevent the damage rather than repair and correct them.

What Maketh a School?

Schools go beyond infrastructure and credentials. If we remove that, it will propel me to work with the most powerful and resourceful seeds of my land to bring forth the greatest human beings that the great philosophers and formal national leaders dream of; a world with pure men and women with empathy and compassion, and a life surrounded by nature which will be stressful but blissful!

UNESCO’s 1996 DELOR’S REPORT reflected that education should be a learning to know, learning to do, learning to live together, and learning to be. In brief, “Learning: the Treasure Within” should be the ultimate aim of education!

We work not to raise our voice, but to raise the standard of the education we serve and make it a point to serve for our students’ eternity!