GUNTUR: In a real-life example of actor Mahesh Babu’s character in Srimanthudu, this Tenali man left his dollar dreams to enrich lives of the less privileged students.
Dr Kolasani Ramchand, a native of Eepuru village in Tenali, completed B.Tech from Gulbarga University in Karnataka, pursued MS from BITS Pilani and Ph.D from Acharya Nagarjuna University. In 1997, he secured a job at Morgan Stanley, a multi-national investment bank in the US.
However, his passion for teaching motivated him to resign from his well-paying job and leave his luxurious lifestyle to come back to India.
Leaving the job was not an easy decision, Ramchand said, and recalled, “I was working as a senior system programmer at one of the most reputed companies in the world. Though I loved my work, I always felt I should be doing something more. When I decided to quit my job and move back home to my native place, my family members vehemently opposed it. But with the support of my wife, I took the leap of faith and reached India.”
Once he was back home in 2000, he was offered a lecturer job at ASN Degree College in Tenali.
“The feeling of making a difference in the lives of so many youngsters gave me a sense of fulfillment,” he noted.
Ramchand designed special courses to empower rural students with the required soft skills, certificate courses, and virtual internship programmes.
As a result of his initiative and hard work, over 1,200 students from the college got placements in prestigious companies such as Wipro, TCS, Infosys, among others in the past few years.
For his incredible services, he was eventually promoted as head of the department, director, and vice-principal, and is currently principal of the college, where he has been working for the past 24 years.
Ramchand also designed a special ethical skills course for the students. “After the Covid-19 pandemic, youngsters started depending on technology and overused it. To ensure that they are close to reality, this course was introduced,” he said.
As part of the course, every student is given a task to perform, including volunteering to teach elementary students, increasing awareness on various issues in society to the public, collecting data on relevant topics, and various other things related to community service.
Ramchand received the prestigious Jyeshta Acharya Award in 2023 for his exceptional service in the field of education.
Elaborating on his aim in life, Ramchand said, “I’ll work hard to contribute to the development of society by being the best educator and make an impact on the lives of my students.”