RIYADH: Envisioning excellence for their students with one of the best-equipped schools in the Middle East, Nadeem Tarin, chairman of the managing committee Delhi Public School (DPS), Riyadh and the Dunes International School (DIS), Dammam, has set higher standards for students so that they succeed in academics and excel in their professional career.

“With that objective in mind Ibrahim Al-Quyed, chairman of the board, and Sultan Salman Al-Saady, the board member, along with a strong management team of Mairaj Mohammad Khan, Fahad Al-Jarais, Mohammed Amjad Khan, Salim ur Rahman, Aoud Al-Qahtani, Khursheed Shah Khan and Dharmendra Menon are offering world-class facilities at the schools in a strong bid to achieve excellence in academics as well as co-curricular activities,” said Tarin, who has just returned from India, his home country.

Tarin was honored with Uttar Pradesh Ratan, an award constituted for the Uttar Pradesh Prawasi Diwas by Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Jan. 4, in appreciation of his philanthropic works expanding business in India and abroad.

Tarin, who has lived in the Kingdom for more than three decades and helped to establish a number of prestigious educational institutions in the Kingdom and India, besides being a successful engineer and businessman, told Arab

News that the three-day UP NRI (non-resident Indians) Day was attended by more than 150 top NRIs from the Gulf, the United States, Canada, Singapore, Fiji and Europe.

Notably, Tarin has also been awarded with an honorary doctorate by his Alma-mater and India’s Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), popularly known as the Oxford of the East.

Tarin,  a philanthropist, added: “Our vision extends beyond the narrow walls of the classrooms and textbooks as it intends to give the students in the Kingdom a truly global perspective by providing international level schooling facilities.”

Greeting the Indian community on the occasion of the 67th Republic Day, he noted that the Dunes and the DPS will be providing high quality education to its students.

Speaking on the occasion of the Republic Day, Tarin congratulated students, teachers and parents, who have contributed to make this school an ideal institution.

“Our primary aim is to develop qualities of unity and integrity, honesty, trust, tolerance and compassion among our students and promote a spirit of inquiry with a view to fostering a scientific temper within the bonds of humanism, and help the students to become a meaningful part of their environment and see that courage and industry have their due reward,” he said.

“To me the very purpose of quality education is character building.”

Children are malleable material who can be shaped into persons of excellence,” Tarin said, adding that being into the school management, we have to be exemplary to our students if we want them to be assets to the society and the nation.

“I feel it is important for every child to enjoy a sense of achievement. Every child should be encouraged to perform to the fullest ability and due importance should be given to learning in areas beyond academics,” he said, pointing toward a number celebrities, including Mohammad Azharuddin, Kapil Dev, Mahesh Bhatt, Kiran Bedi and Shatrughan Sinha, visiting the school campus to motivate students.

“An institution should be a living place that shapes children’s lives and builds their character,“ Tarin added.

To assess the school’s performance only by high academic scores by their students is not sufficient; it is equally important for a school to be a place for happy children with a love for learning and sound value system, said the educationist.

“To achieve these objectives, we need to work jointly with the parents of our students to create a climate for open exchange of views and experiences, supporting each other’s quest for quality on all fronts,” he added.

“The pursuit of excellence encouraged at these two schools rests on the positive belief that every person has it in them to produce work, the quality of which can be described as first class,” he observed.

He added: “Working at the best to this end, DPS and Dunes administration endeavor to provide a large and dedicated teaching staff with a wide range of skills and interest, a varied and wide choice of activities — academic, aesthetic and athletic — an environment enriched with the excitement of discovery, challenge and competitiveness and discipline based on the belief that responsibility comes before freedom.”

Tarin maintained that the DPS and the Dunes professes its students not only to describe the world around them, but also to prescribe the best ways to live and compete at the global level.

“This is reflective of the fact that we serve others willingly, graciously and selflessly, while we are not expecting anything in return for our selfless service because there is greater pleasure in giving than in receiving,” said Tarin.

“By serving others, we serve the purpose of the Almighty,” Tarin said, expressing his admiration for teachers and students, and congratulated the parents for extraordinary results of students every year by the DPS and the Dunes in secondary school examination.