Our History

The Nanubhai Education Foundation was founded by Raj Shah in 2004 in honor of Nanubhai Nayik, the principal of Kadod High School in Gujarat, India from 1963-1984. Principal Nanubhai was, by all accounts, authoritative, but nevertheless adored by his students and fellow staff members. Due to his outstanding leadership and revolutionary approach to education, during his tenure, over 500 professionals emigrated from a small town of 10,000 in rural Gujarat to America and the UK. Principal Nanubhai transformed a sleepy rural education system into one that created incredible opportunities for its students. We named our Foundation after him to honor his sacrifices and achievements. Raj’s father was one of the students inspired by Principal Nanubhai, and he settled in the United States as a practicing physician. During family trips to India, Raj was struck by the poverty in Kadod, the very village which gave his father the education to migrate to the United Sates. To make a sustainable difference through education, Raj created the Nanubhai Education Foundation to help Kadod High School continue empowering and opening doors for rural students in today’s global economy. Over the years, the successes of the Nanubhai Education Foundation have exceeded Raj’s original expectations. The past six years have included many successes: expansion from one to four rural high schools, the construction of two computer labs, the founding of three children’s lending libraries with over 1,000 books, thousands of hours of instruction from our Nanubhai Teaching Fellows and in a few months, the training and placement of Nanubhai trained local teachers in other local area high schools. The Nanubhai team has created a scalable, sustainable model for significantly improving teaching and learning in rural government schools. We have seen increased engagement, confidence, and motivation in the students we serve, as well as renewed interest and passion in student outcomes from the schools and teachers we work with. With the generous contributions of our supporters, we plan to apply our model to improve the education of students not just in Gujarat, but across all of India.