In the heart of Chhattisgarh’s Bastar division, a quiet revolution in education is being led by Vinayak Kohli, a highly celebrated Social Science and Geography teacher at PM Shri Kendriya Vidyalaya in Kondagaon. His groundbreaking approach to pedagogy recently earned him major national recognition when he won the national award in the Geography category at the India's Best Teachers Awards 2026.
Organized jointly by the Oxford Saïd Business School and the Shiv Nadar Foundation, the prestigious competition saw Kohli emerge victorious from a massive pool of more than nine thousand five hundred applicants nationwide. In doing so, he distinguished himself as the country's youngest recipient of this honor, redefining what is possible in rural classroom settings and bringing immense pride to his region.
The essence of Kohli’s teaching philosophy was vividly captured during the final selection phase of the awards. Standing before a distinguished panel of experts and Oxford University professors, he did something entirely unexpected. Drawing upon his years of training in classical dance, Kohli opened his presentation with a traditional Bharatanatyam gesture.
This was not merely a theatrical flourish but a profound pedagogical statement. He used the moment to demonstrate how seamlessly integrating an educator’s unique personal skills and artistic passions into a rigid academic curriculum can make abstract global concepts instantly engaging, deeply relatable, and significantly more impactful for students, particularly those in tribal and rural communities.
This innovative mindset is the driving force behind Chhattisgarh’s first dedicated Social Science Lab, a space Kohli meticulously designed to function as a collaborative, multi-dimensional learning environment. Moving decisively away from traditional, lecture-based instruction and static rows of desks, he envisioned a hybrid classroom, research workshop, and community club for students in classes six through ten.
The lab is highly flexible, with wall spaces fully utilized for student-made topographic charts, geographical maps, and interactive programs. This design intentionally bridges the gap between complex textbook theories and the everyday, real-world experiences of the students, ensuring full alignment with the experiential learning mandates of India's National Education Policy 2020.
A cornerstone of this transformative space is the adjoining tribal museum corner, a dedicated section ensuring that local heritage is celebrated rather than forgotten in academic settings. Kohli facilitated direct collaboration between his students and local tribal artisans to curate and display authentic wood carvings, terracotta art, and traditional Dhokra metalwork.
Demonstrating remarkable initiative, the students themselves built the infrastructure for this exhibit. Instead of relying on expensive commercial showcases, they installed custom LED wiring to properly illuminate their own tribal folk and Warli paintings, taking absolute ownership of their cultural preservation and classroom environment.
Beyond cultural preservation, the lab operates with the empirical rigor of a traditional science facility. Kohli designed specialized storage spaces and field kits allowing students to test, catalog, and analyze real soil samples gathered directly from surrounding agricultural fields. In the soil mapping project, students analyze texture and moisture retention before plotting this empirical data onto a large physical layout of the Kondagaon district, connecting textbook agriculture chapters directly to their family’s livelihood.
Similarly, to demystify complex two-dimensional textbook diagrams of contour lines and river basins, students use biodegradable materials, clay, and waste cardboard to construct detailed three-dimensional topographic models of the Bastar plateau and the Indravati river basin.
The commitment to experiential learning extends powerfully into the realm of political science through an interactive civics and democracy booth. To bring chapters on elections and democracy to life, Kohli and his students moved far beyond simple paper ballot boxes. They engineered a fully functional, simulated Electronic Voting Machine system for their annual student council elections.
Housed within a cardboard voting compartment, the setup utilizes basic electrical circuits, switches, small LED lights, and a buzzer. When a voter presses the button next to their chosen candidate, the circuit closes, triggering a distinct beep and illuminating the corresponding LED. To prevent double-voting, a student polling officer must manually press a ready button on a separate control unit to activate the ballot unit for the next voter.
The authenticity of this democratic simulation is completed by a final, crucial detail. After casting their simulated vote, students proceed to a dedicated station where their left index finger is marked with a homemade version of indelible ink. This meticulous attention to detail demystifies the national voting system, transforming abstract civic duties into a tangible, memorable, and deeply respected real-world practice.
Furthermore, a portion of the space is consistently arranged to hold active role-playing and Youth Parliament debates, ensuring that the principles of democratic discourse are continually practiced and internalized by the students.
The profound success of this classroom experiment has naturally sparked a major educational shift across the region. Deeply impressed by the lab's measurable impact on student engagement and comprehension, Kondagaon District Collector Nupur Rashi Panna formally directed all school principals across the district to begin establishing dedicated geography and social science laboratories modeled directly after Kohli’s pioneering design.
This administrative mandate ensures that the benefits of this innovative pedagogy will not remain confined to a single classroom but will uplift the entire district's educational framework.
On a national level, the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan headquarters has widely celebrated Kohli's achievement, actively highlighting his project framework as a standard benchmark for competency-based, experiential learning. This institutional endorsement has prompted multiple PM Shri schools across the region to adopt flexible learning spaces, practical field testing repositories, and student-run youth initiatives.
Through his visionary blend of cultural pride, scientific rigor, and democratic simulation, Vinayak Kohli has not only earned a prestigious international fellowship but has also provided a scalable, replicable blueprint for the future of rural education in India.
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*Associate Professor (Retd.), NIRD, Hyderabad
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