Introduction to The Doon School Dehradun
In Uttarakhand, the name Dehradun is connected with education. It has some of the best residential schools and is referred to as India’s school capital. The city is the ideal setting for schooling because of its beautiful surroundings. This city has undergone significant growth in the past ten years, becoming not only the educational center of Uttarakhand but also of the entire region of North India. The Doon School Dehradun is one of the top schools in India.
Some of the esteemed schools in Dehradun have educated notable individuals including Rajiv Gandhi, Abhinav Bindra, and Amitav Ghosh. There is a college or university for just about anything, from law to engineering, management to medical, and pharmacy to design. The National Institute for Visually Handicapped, the first facility of its kind in India, is located in Dehradun.
It is renowned for being the first printing of the Braille script and help blind youngsters with their education. Organizations like the Latika Roy Foundation here educate those with disabilities, offering them a shot at the job and communal involvement. Numerous prestigious universities, including NIT and IIT Roorkee, are located close to the city.
The town is an important location in the nation because it is home to the Indian Military Academy and the renowned Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA). Additionally, the city is home to a large number of coaching facilities that prepare students for a variety of competitive exams. These factors alone are sufficient to support its designation as the nation’s school capital.
The leading schools in the city have the newest and most cutting-edge technology, which helps to deliver a superior educational experience. Smart classrooms, projectors, computerized classrooms, and other technological innovations are just a few of the tools that these institutions employ to improve the learning environment.
About The Doon School Dehradun
One of the famous schools in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, is The Doon School. It is a boarding school for guys alone. It began as an indigenous Indian Public School in 1935. Satish Ranjan Das, a lawyer from Kolkata, launched The Doon. He agreed to join Viceroy Lord Irwin‘s executive council in 1927 on the understanding that he might use his position to generate money for a brand-new kind of school in India.
For this, he selected a lush valley known as the Doon Valley, and he decided to call the new school “Doon School.” In the nation’s educational landscape, The Doon School has consistently held the top spot. It offers a wide range of amenities to its students, including a sizable campus, well-stocked labs, libraries, sports fields, etc.
The Doon School has gained an iconic position in India after being named the country’s top legacy boarding school for four straight years (2007–2010) in the Education World – C fore India’s Most Respected Schools Survey. The Doon School was intended to be a completely secular institution that would draw boys from all facets of Indian culture and from every state.
Boys who will later serve a free and democratic India were the focus of the Doon School’s education program. Arthur Foot, a science teacher from Eton College, served as the school’s first headmaster. John Martyn, his assistant and a Housemaster from Harrow, went on to become the second Headmaster of the school.
The nation’s most well-known political, administrative, business, and media figures all received their early education at The Doon School (TDS). The best aspects of British education, including organized games, high academic standards, the teaching of science, and effective teacher-student relationships, were adopted. Since TDS has established a reputation for providing secondary education that is well-rounded and evolved over the previous 76 years, it should be obvious that this has been a huge success.
Architecture of The Doon School Dehradun
Imperial Public Works Department completed the building Main Building, which was then located on FRI, in 1911. Basilica Palladiana in Vicenza, Italy, served as inspiration for the building’s Renaissance-style design. Numerous structures on campus were created by renowned Indian architects or firms.
The new Arts and Media Centre, which was opened in October 2010 and nominated for the 2010 World Architecture News Education Award, was designed by alumni Sandeep Khosla and was built by Ram Sharma, Anagram Architects, the Biology block, and Romi Khosla. The Arts and Media Centre features a lecture hall, a film and photography studio, a publishing room, and exhibition galleries in addition to painting, ceramic, sculpture, and textile workshops.
The school’s Main Building was awarded “Honorable Mention” in 2016 as part of the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation as a result of the conservation work done on the more than century-old structure by Aishwarya Tipnis Architects.
Campus of The Doon School Dehradun
The school’s small campus is nearly perfectly planned and landscaped, and its red brick and stone buildings house fully-equipped biology, physics, and chemistry labs, a cutting-edge computer department and IT center with 120 terminals, the Rajiv Gandhi Design and Technology Centre, and special natural history and physics museums. Additionally, the Kilachand Library at the institution provides access to 18,000 publications, including books and multimedia.
The university boasts a lovely campus that was once the location of the Forest Research Institute and is therefore home to a diverse range of flora and wildlife. Dehradun’s open spaces and pure Himalayan air offer a safe and secure environment for children to grow up in.
In addition, TDS provides outstanding sporting facilities, including a 25-meter pool, four squash courts, two basketball courts, four tennis courts, a cricket field, and specific fields for hockey and soccer. Additionally, there are facilities for performing boxing, badminton, gymnastics, and table tennis.
Academics of The Doon School Dehradun
The school is a member of the Council for Indian School Certificate Examination, Delhi, and admits boys beginning in class VII (CISCE). It also offers the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program and is associated with the International Baccalaureate Organization, which is situated in Geneva (IBDP).
The Indian Certificate of Secondary Education is one of two public exams that the Council administers, and English is the language of teaching (ICSE). Many of our students who pass the 2+ exam go on to pursue their education abroad, where they can choose between an IB Diploma and the ISC.
In addition to the academic disciplines, it is required that students learn carpentry, Sanskrit, yoga, music, art, and design. In addition to Sanskrit, students may choose to study German or French; Sanskrit is still required. Due to the school’s longstanding dedication to community service, the Indian Government adopted SUPW (Socially Useful Productive Work) as a required component of the curriculum for all schools, drawing inspiration from the Doon model.
This and other cutting-edge educational strategies, such as our current teacher training programs, demonstrate The Doon School’s dedication to setting the standard for top educational practice in India. Doon frequently attracts media attention and occasionally criticism for what is thought to be the disproportionate impact of its graduates in areas like Indian politics, business, or culture.
In the 1980s, Rajiv Gandhi’s government came under fire and earned the moniker “Doon Cabinet” because prominent positions were filled by people he knew from high school. Politicians, diplomats, artists, writers, businesspeople, and others have all received education from the institution.
The late Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, his son Rahul Gandhi, the artist Anish Kapoor, the authors Vikram Seth, Ramchandra Guha, and Amitav Ghosh, the fashion designer Tarun Tahiliani, the mountaineer Nandu Jayal, the Olympic gold medalist Abhinav Bindra, as well as the social and environmental activists Bunker Roy and Lalit Pande are among those who once attended Doon.
What is the Admission Procedure of The Doon School Dehradun?
Every year, in January and April, boys are accepted into the Uttarakhand ICSE School. It allows admission to the 8th grade in January and the 7th standard in April. A boy must be at least 11 years old and at least 12 years old in September of the year he takes the entrance exam in order to be admitted to the 7th standard.
He must be older than 12 and younger than 13 in September of the year he takes the test in order to be admitted to the eighth standard. The Doon School’s entrance process consists of two parts. Boys must take an admission exam in India’s main metropolises as their initial step. Boys who pass the written test in the second round of admissions are invited for a face-to-face interview.
The interviews are typically conducted in December at the School and in a few key places throughout India. The Doon School does not accept boys after the eighth standard, so a candidate must meet the age limit stated above in order to sit for the admission examination again. The number of boys accepted each year is determined by the openings left over after the ISC and ICSE candidates have left the school.
