History

In The Beginning

Permission to build and open a United World College in India was granted by the Government in 1993 and construction began just two years later. With the first phase of buildings completed, the College welcomed the pioneer group of 87 students and 11 faculty in September 1997. The early days saw the College at work with the second phase of construction in progress with the Multi-Purpose Hall completed just two weeks before the pioneers sat for their I.B. examinations in May 1999.

Our Develpoment

The ten years that have passed since these early days have seen some key developments of both the infrastructure and the educational programme. The Internet tower on the hill overlooking the College provided broad-band access for the first time in early 2000; the swimming pool opened in 2002; a new student house opened in 2005 and work commenced on developing the College grounds as a bio-diversity reserve in 2006. The range of subjects offered has been increased with the introduction of Philosophy in 1999, Music in 2001, Film Studies in 2003 and both Human Rights and Theatre Arts in 2006.

As the years have passed, the vision of the founding fathers, Harish and Keshub Mahindra, for the College to play an increasingly important role in the life of the surrounding villages has also been realised. From the early days, outreach programmes in rural health and education have been developed. The College has worked in partnership with an organisation running a village community of handicapped adults, where a successful small business making and selling hand-made candles has gone far towards making the village financially independent. More recently, a major partnership with the local high school to provide supplementary education in English, Mathematics, Science and Computer Science has already seen a dramatic rise in standards and the first scholarship entry of students from that school into the College.

We've come of Age

Looking ahead beyond the completion of the first decade to the second, there are ambitious plans for a further 10 years of development. Central to this is the aim of having a college that has minimised its impact on the environment by becoming completely independent of energy other than that generated by solar and wind power and by biogas. As most of its 170 acres returns slowly to the original evergreen forest that covered a large part of the Western Ghats, it will become a major resource for the faculty and students and for environmentalists from Maharashtra and beyond.