Their story began in the mid-70s, when – at the young age of 22 – the two decided to dedicate their life to education. For 10 years they worked with various schools, from teaching the poor in the slums of Dharavi, all the way to teaching the privileged in Kodai International. They also studied many alternative education methods like Waldorf, Frobel, Montessori, Glen Doman; concepts like democratic education; and philosophies by the greats such as Mother of Aurobindo Ashram, Swami Vivekananda, Jiddu Krishnamurti etc. They particularly loved the ideas and philosophies on education by the Mother and Sri Aurobindo, and the research and teaching techniques developed by Glenn Doman. Accumulating, assimilating and innovating upon all of this experience and knowledge, the couple invented and developed a unique method of teaching called  ‘QuadSeek’.

Their daughter, Nirupama, was only 2 when Mr and Mrs Raghavan started practising and developing the ‘QuadSeek’ teaching method, by experimenting on their own child. As a result, at the age of 4, Nirupama could read and speak 4 languages, was reading Roald Dahl and Enid Blyton, knew basic Geometry and could solve simple Algebraic equations”. Nirupama was thereby completely home-schooled, and directly appeared for A levels, Cambridge, where she performed exceedingly well. By the age of 8, she wrote a book that was published by the Indian Express, becoming one of the youngest authors of India. At the age of 15, Nirupama penned an abridged English translation of the Tamil novel called ‘Parthiban’s Dream’.

Chidambaram Subramaniam, the Bharat Ratna recipient, who most notably served as the Minister of India for Finance, Defence and Food and Agriculture (where he came to be known as the Father of the Green Revolution), on being introduced to the Raghavans, their “QuadSeek” method and Nirupama’s genius as a result, would write an article in the Hindu describing how the Raghavans’ method could transform the Indian education system. Read the full story.

Shikshayatan, the first QuadSeek school, was founded on August 15th 1994, and was a result of the Raghavans moving from Mumbai with their 6 year old daughter, to a small village called Arasavanankadu (AVK), Thiruvarur district, Tamil Nadu, in 1983. To date, the village doesn’t have electricity for around 8-10 hours a day. When the Raghavans arrived here, neither did they know Tamil nor did they know anyone in the village. Here, they started an experimental 100% free school with their savings, for the extremely poor in that area, and have been running it since last 28 years. Today, the school has extremely good facilities, including 60 computers for 200 children, science labs, a vast library, playgrounds etc. As a result, the school’s most underprivileged students speak fluent English, know everything about India, many countries and regions of the world, Science, are extremely proficient at Math, and incredibly articulate in History.