Top grade for school

One of the island's oldest and most renowned community schools has become the first in the kingdom to be awarded an international standard in quality.

The Indian School Bahrain in Isa Town was recently awarded the ISO 9001:2002, becoming only the second school in the entire Gulf, after the Indian High School in Dubai, to receive the accreditation.

P V Radhakrishna Pillai, chairman of the school, said: "ISO is an accolade benchmarking our quality.

"We had to devise various procedures to keep the school running and to continue this we needed a watchdog or an observing body and ISO was the best. We formulate our guidelines and they monitor those."

Launched in 1950 by a committed group of three members and a headmistress, the school today boasts 7,262 students, 319 teachers and 72 non-teaching staff over two campuses in Isa Town and Sitra.

The school was predominantly aimed at children of the Indian community but now caters to various different nationalities.

Mr Pillai said: "This credit is because of our quality.

"The Indian School Bahrain, I feel, is invariably one of the best community schools in the Gulf both in academics as well as extra curricular activities.

The Indian School provides educational facilities in accordance with the syllabi of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) in New Delhi, India.

In the last five years the school has received 100 per cent results in its tenth standard board examinations and is among just 100 schools world-wide, under the CBSE umbrella which covers nearly 6,800 schools, to offer biotechnology as an optional subject for the 11th and 12th grades.

For students interested in pursuing their education at any of the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) in India, there is now the option of enrolling into coaching classes from grade eight.

Mr Pillai said: "We noticed that despite such excellent academic results only two students got through to an IIT campus in five years. We realised that there was a lack of competitive spirit, compared to youngsters in India, which we are trying to overcome by introducing IIT/JEE classes."

In order to provide the best for its students, the school is currently building its seventh and largest block on the football ground adjacent to St Christopher's School.

The new 5,000 sqm block will feature four floors with more than 35 classrooms with modern amenities including audio-visual CCTVs, seven laboratories dedicated to physics, computer science, biotechnology, biology, chemistry, home science and psychology, a multi-purpose hall and a public library.

Aside from its academic brilliance the school has, over the past six years, added a range of extracurricular activities and personality development options for students.

Mr Pillai said: "My vision about education is different. I think schools should provide many avenues for children to develop their personalities. It's a holistic solution.

"When I first came to the school in 2002, I was surprised that a school of this magnitude did not have extra curricular activities in place and so I introduced the extra curricular activities.

"Being a community school we took the lead."

Aside from introducing two more school houses to the existing four, Mr Pillai also introduced cultural events for the school calendar.

He said: "We first introduced 'Ritu' an interschool cultural competition. After we observed its success, we unveiled 'Harmony' where students began comparing their performances with other Gulf counterparts.

"Students from all over the Gulf, and invariably at least one school from India, were invited to Bahrain to participate.

"Every year at least 600 students join the festivities with a total participation of 1,200."

The school was also in the limelight recently when it hosted, for the first time, an International Speech Contest offering prize money worth $1,000 each for senior and junior sections.

With their new Student Exchange Programme, students have had the opportunity to go to the UK and Egypt as well as Indian cities such as Ludhiana and Ooty.

A unique feature of the school remains that with rising inflation and costs of living, the school has maintained its academic fee structure constant for the past 27 years. The school has also upgraded its transport network, which runs 116 routes, with a fleet of fully air-conditioned buses.

Mr Pillai said: "If you have a will you have a way ... you can do tremendous things with education.

"I lacked all these facilities in my childhood - I didn't have any avenues to develop my personality.

"But children shouldn't be devoid of educational facilities just because they are studying in a community school."

Fact-file

ISO - International Organisation for Standardisation is the world's largest developer and publisher of International Standards.

In order to achieve the award of its ISO 9001:2002 The Indian School Bahrain had to meet various guidelines in quality and standards assessed by the ISO which has an office in Dubai.

For the school the award means international recognition for providing quality education for its students.

It could also mean increased sponsorship for the community school's projects and programmes.