Garden High School

BRIEF OF THE SCHOOL Garden High is an English-medium coeducational school. It was established in 2000 by the Satikanta Guha Foundation. This School is an attempt to give a ‘local habitation and a name’ to the vision that Satikanta Guha and his wife, Prity Lata, had tried to give shape to in founding South Point. That vision is shared by all who have played a part in establishing this School and are involved in its present management.The School is affiliated to the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE), New Delhi, for the ICSE (Class X) and ISC (Class XII) examinations. The school's motto ‘Let knowledge lead to wisdom, and wisdom to emancipation.’ echoes what many thinkers of many lands and many ages have said in many different ways: knowledge is not enough, and mere knowledge may dazzle and make one blind. Learning must lead to wisdom which gives one the capacity to see things in a proper perspective, and enables one to grow out of oneself. It is through wisdom that emancipation comes. Very few can attain it, but it is this straining after a goal, knowing that it will probably always be beyond one’s reach, that makes a man, a man. Garden High is thus a school Where pupils come first and all else later. Which thinks that education is concerned with pupils as persons, not with how they can be trained for a career. Which believes that a school should be ‘training minds, not stuffing them’. Which, therefore, encourages pupils to think for themselves, and tries to kindle their curiosity, so that they may venture out on their own beyond the beaten track of the syllabi. Which does not try to impress with inessentials at the cost of what is essential, academic integrity and excellence. It should also be made clear that by ‘academic excellence’ we do not mean securing some of the top ten or twenty ranks in a public examination. Though affiliation to any board or council means working within the prescribed syllabi, the School does its best to educate its pupils in the true sense of the term: teaching them to think independently and rationally. Pupils are always encouraged to interact with teachers both inside and outside the classroom. To make this interaction easy and possible, it has been made certain that the teacher-pupil ratio never exceeds 1:20. Pupils have free access at all times not only to their teachers, but also to the Coordinators, Director (Nursery & Primary Department), Vice-Principal and Principal, who give them all the attention and help they need to solve their academic problems as also any others that they might have. Co-curricular activities form an integral part of the routine, and efforts are being made continually to make them as diverse as possible without disrupting the academic routine of the School in any way. Though the medium of instruction is English, Bengali and Hindi are taught with utmost care, and all efforts are made to make pupils aware of their heritage as Indians. At the same time, as the motto of the School – Knowledge, Wisdom, Emancipation – makes it clear, pupils are encouraged to think of themselves as belonging to the common race of man and shed all racial, social, and religious prejudices.