Anantapur : A doctorate in engineering from the prestigious IIT Mumbai led to him being lured by MNCs, who offered him attractive packages, but U. Subba Raju always remained steadfastly true to his passion — the cause of rural education. This resource person and teacher spent more than 24 years of his life dedicated to the service of rural people.
Subba Raju, 50, whose greatest enthusiasm was to bring about reforms in school education, passed away due to brain haemorrhage in Bengaluru on Friday.
This gold medallist in engineering spent half his life mingling with rural people at the Nature School in the forest of CK Palli mandal headquarters in Anantapur district.
Subba Raju was born in Tirupati. His father, unable to feed his family by farming his unproductive land, became an itinerant coolie in various towns, sending small sums of money home. He passed away when Subba Raju was five.
His mother sent him to the a school run by Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams. He stood out in academics. Subba Raju ente-red IIT and then went on to do his Master’s in energy systems. In 1990 he earned a PhD.
In 1995, Dr Subba Raju joined the Timbaktu Collective to educate the children of the countryside. Later, he moved on to set up an independent initiative to work with children. “What he did for children is incredible and memorable. He left his IIT career to follow his interest in rural child learning,” said Dinesh, who has had a close association with Subba Raju for more than a decade.
He added Subba Raju strongly believed that a student’s basic academics should be thorough, then children could go ahead with a clear vision.
More than 1,000 students at the Nature School of the NGO were trained by the expert. He also trained hundreds of teachers in both states about reforms in the education system.
Subba Raju is survived by his wife Ancy, their two daughters, a large family of close friends and scores of children whose lives he touched in a meaningful way.
