The High School Certificate Examinations in Orissa have thrown up a surprise result—hundreds of Saraswati Vidya Mandirs performed exceptionally well with 44 of the top 102 students coming from these schools. As many as 16 out of the 29 of the top 10 ranks are from the Saraswati Vidya Mandirs.
While Bibek Bishal Mehena from Saraswati Vidya Mandir in Rourkela secured the top rank, Sanket Dash of Saraswati Vidya Mandir in Berhampur town and Ansuman Tripathy of Saraswati Vidya Mandir in Bolangir secured the second and third positions respectively in the results declared recently. Last year too, these schools had done well with 15 of its students securing top-20 positions. Trends over the past six years have shown that Saraswati Vidya Mandirs generally do better than other schools in secondary and senior secondary examinations in the state.
From humble beginnings in 1978, the march of these schools is a success story that has not been highlighted much. Today, there are over 11,000 Acharyas and Gurumas (teachers) in 739 schools across the state, who live a no-frills life to teach 1.8 lakh students from kindergarten to Class X for a pittance.
According to reports received from Dehradun, 47 out of 63 toppers in Uttarakhand High School Examinations and 18 out of 43 toppers in Intermediate School Examinations are from Vidya Bharati Schools. The student, Abhinav Kala, who stood first in the High School Examination, is from Meharban Singh Kandari Vidya Mandir, Kotdwar. The second, third and fourth ranks have also secured by the Vidya Bharati school students only. By and large 94 per cent students in high school and 83 per cent students in intermediate classes passed from Vidya Bharati schools.
There are similar kinds of encouraging reports from Delhi, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and some other states also. The exact number of the students securing ranks and high positions in the secondary and senior secondary examinations this year will be available only after July 17 when the meeting of Kshetra Pramukhs is over.
According to Shri GS Rawal, general secretary of Vidya Bharati, there are a total of 15624 schools including 733 senior secondary, 1915 secondary, 4411 middle, 7014 primary and 1551 nursery-cum-preprimary schools, run by Vidya Bharati across the country. A total of 27,63,622 students including 2,36,259 in senior secondary, 2,70,887 in secondary, 5,99,583 in middle, 13,63,186 in primary and 2,93,760 in nursery and pre-primary schools are taught by 1,16,8500 teachers in these schools. Apart from these schools, the Vidya Bharati also runs 9,960 Sanskar Kendras cum Single Teacher schools in remote rural and Vanvasi areas in which 3,59,390 students are taught by 10,405 teachers. For providing better education the Vidya Bharati also runs 215 residential schools including 157 for boys, 19 for girls and 39 for co-education.
Talking to Organiser in New Delhi Shri Rawal said the Vidya Bharati is committed to provide quality education with quality samskars to all the students studying in its schools across the country.
(FOC)
