By Alok Joshi
The Doon School Old Boys’ Society (DSOBS) held its inaugural DOSCO Summit 2025, the first of its kind, on 14 October in New Delhi. The summit, conceived as a platform of thought, reflection, and dialogue, brought together distinguished alumni and national leaders to deliberate on the critical questions that define leadership, education, and societal responsibility in present times. It demonstrated its commitment to shaping conversations that go beyond the Doon School by engaging with the challenges of an increasingly complex global environment. In some ways, through its discussions, the 90-year-old school very aptly tried to be part of its wider influence on society.
There were three panel discussions on diverse topics. The first one deliberated on leadership, the second was titled, “Beyond Academics: Values at the Heart of Learning”, and the third on “The DOSCO impact on Society and the Aristocracy of Service”.
The panellists for the last session on “Aristocracy in Service” included DOSCOs Lt Gen Vipul Shinghal PVSM AVSM, Dy Chief of Integrated Defence Staff, Indian Army, Rajit Punhani IAS, CEO, FSSAI, Govt of India, Ashvin Dayal, Sr Vice President, The Rockefeller Foundation (who joined virtually from New York) and Amitav Virmani, Founder & CEO, The Education Alliance. The panel discussion was moderated by Abhinav Kumar, IPS, ADG, Uttarakhand Police.
To some it might have appeared as a kind of reunion to revive old memories and nostalgia of the lovely school campus. But the panellists went much beyond and talked of their experiences that impacted their mindsets, their ambitions, their challenges in the fast-changing world.
A common question posed to the panellists was about how their experience in the school shaped their approach in their chosen field of public service. They considered their institution as a great “leveller” because students came from different backgrounds, different religions, etc., and Lt Gen Vipul, for instance, found the same pattern when he joined the NDA. They were always encouraged to think beyond the classroom. There was also a discussion on Doscos going abroad to pursue their ambitions, which was not something very popular in earlier batches.
Amitav Virmani, founder of the Education Alliance, an NGO to improve government school infrastructure has been in the field of public education for the last 17 years. He brought out the crisis in the field of education with some stunning data. “We educate 250 million children through 9 million teachers,” he pointed out. In comparison, China has 300,000 schools to educate 260 million kids. A teacher spends more than 40% of his/ her time on administrative duties. There are more teachers than students. There is enough funding, but the allocation is not balanced. The statistics present a complicated landscape.
There was a lot of discussion on the different aspects of education and the need to focus on vocational training to boost employment opportunities. The audience, also part of the school fraternity, raised some pertinent issues. The major takeaway of the summit was an agreement on coming together and doing something constructive to better the schools in Uttarakhand. Well-begun is half-done!
