Educator By Accident, Passionate Since Birth

Dr. Rasika Satyajeet Dasture, Pricipal: South Point High School

While some people are drawn to entrepreneurship, some endeavor into unchartered territories merely by chance. If you are one who falls into the latter category, be rest assured that only persistence and efficacy will get you noticed. One such person is Dr. Rasika Dasture. Nagpur born and life-long resident, Dr. Rasika had modest beginnings. With a vision to practice law, Dr. Rasika worked her way up starting off as a stenographer in a lawyers office while studying to completing her legal education, working as a clerk with a bank and finally settling into practicing law as a junior lawyer under a lawyer. On getting married into a family that ran 3 schools, Dr. Rasika decided to pursue teaching and help out her new family. She therefore complete her Bachelors in Education following it up with an additional bachelors as well as a Masters in English Literature. For some, this would sound like a few too many degrees to have, but Dr. Rasika is one of those who was yearning for more and was able to pursue a Doctorate in English Literature. Be it running a family business, Dr. Rasika never took things for granted and earned her position as the Principal of South Point School.

A novice in the field of education, being a hard worker and a perfectionist by nature helped Dr. Rasika to fit into the role of a Principal. Starting from recognizing and facing various day to day problems and issues in the school, with time, Dr. Rasika started to launch various innovative activities for the children of the school. Though not all not so successful from point go, each taught Dr. Rasika something new. Additionally, the industry comes with its many perils which Dr. Rasika is trying to conquer one at a time and sometimes also all at once. Firstly, the stiff competition in the industry. Having identified that as key, Dr. Rasika has ensured that she is able to employ best teachers, to get the best out of them and also be able to retain these trained teachers. Another often overlooked problem area is the apathy of the parents to give time to their kids. With the current times and the challenges it brings, Dr. Rasika and her team struggled yet kept and continue to keep trying to garner the support and co-operation from the parents to be able to successfully educated students. Lastly, the challenge which has existed since time immemorial is the lack of passion and hard-work in the children themselves. She managed to overcome many of these issues in her time following by bringing about activities and conferences to the forefront which were path breaking in their own right.

With the Principals’ Educational Conference organized by South Point School, with Dr. Rasika in the role of the co-convenor, she learnt many a new tricks of the trade and she brought it on herself to organize the Students Conclave, StuCon shortly after. With Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam as her idol, Dr. Rasika was charged to be able to give wings to the students and empower them, the result of which was StuCon. A conference meant for the High School Students, which would give them a platform to listen, think, analyze and decide on many issues. As the Convenor of the Students Conclave, Dr. Rasika’s sole aim was to give the student-delegates all the exposure of not only speaking on the stage but also meeting inspiring people.

Taking her role seriously, Dr. Rasika has worked as the resource person for the teacher training programs conducted by Vidya Bharti, participated in many conferences and also with English being her subject, has presented papers in the National Level English Conferences conducted by ELTAI, Maharashtra, which also led to 2 of her papers being published in national level journals.