Having been founded in 1958, when the city of Chandigarh was in its infancy, the college has grown with the city, becoming an integral part of the region’s socio-cultural milieu. The college belongs to the family of the famous D.A.V. institutions, founded by Mahatma Hans Raj, and inspired by the great visionary-Swami Dayanand Saraswati-the doyen of the Arya Samaj, who believed that, “True education consists in promoting knowledge, civilized manners, virtuous character, self-control and other moral qualities and in dispelling ignorance”. He had always felt that the scientific knowledge of the west needs to be absorbed in the cultural milieu of India. The D.A.V. movement, which started in 1886, gives a practical shape to the ideal of Swami Dayanand’s educational philosophy which aims to develop a modern scientific approach among the students, coupled with an understanding of their roots in the ancient Vedic Culture. The D.A.V. College, Chandigarh is trying to bring about this synthesis by imparting to the students the best of new world humanistic, scientific and technical knowledge with the sense of history of their rich cultural heritage-the Anglo and Vedic values. We work to achieve these broad objectives.
The college was built from scratch with missionary zeal. Brick by brick, the early principals and teachers of the college put in super human efforts to launch the college. And those among the students who saw the college come up, knew exactly, what the growth had entailed. They experienced first hand, the self less labour and love, and the sense of duty and discipline, which had gone into the making of the institution. It is this that makes many of these old students, themselves occupying high places, come back to the college for educating their sons and grand-sons, and now even daughters and grand-daughters. They believe that the skills and values ingrained in them, which helped them succeed in their lives, have been acquired by them in this institution. They not only remember their college for its academic excellence, its committed faculty and dedicated principals, its ever growing, impressive infrastructure and its start sportsmen, or grand festivals, but something tangible and lot more significant.
