Kerala School celebrates diamond jubilee

New Delhi: It is a gift from Delhi Malayalis to their future generations. Apart from sharing the history of Keralites in New Delhi, Kerala School on Canning Road has a lot of stories to tell. It celebrated its diamond jubilee last week.

Six decades ago, the school was founded on a day when Gandhi Jayanti and Vidyarambham fell on the same day - October 2. The school was a dream come true - an educational institution for Keralites in the national capital. The talks for starting the school had in fact started before the formation of Kerala.

The idea took birth at a meeting at the Kerala Club in 1951. A committee headed by K C Nair, who was then working with the external affairs ministry, was set up to study the idea. Once Kerala was formed, the procedures got expedited and on October 2, 1957, the school was founded under the Kerala Educational Society.

In the beginning, the school functioned out of a tent near Cochin House at Jantar Mantar with 17 students and two teaching staff. Now, it has grown to 1,400 students along with 60 teaching staff and 20 non-teaching staff members.

From Canning Road, the school has spread its wings to Vikas Puri, RK Puram and Mayur Vihar Phase 3. Dr K N S Nair, K R K Menon, P K S Kutty and Prof Omchery N N Pillai have contributed a lot towards the growth of the school.

Here, Malayalam is a compulsory subject for all students until class 10. The school has received several accolades in curricular and co-curricular activities. It won 22 prizes in the state education director's district meet. In the Kala Utsav, the school bagged three first prizes this time.

In its diamond jubilee year, the school has carried out several developmental works. Under the new administration committee that took charge in 2017, a 40kw solar power project was completed. The school has 39 classrooms and digital study facilities.

Stage renovation, new basketball, football and cricket grounds, water harvesting system and digital payment system were completed recently. The biology, chemistry and physics laboratories were renovated with the help of school alumni.

Some of the well-known alumni of the school include former Delhi chief secretary Chandramohan, Indian Institute of Mass Communication director general K G Suresh, and Asha Ajith, among others.

The school is spearheaded by Kerala Education Society chairman Babu Panicker, treasurer E George, school manager P K Ravindranathan and principal K G Harikumar.

The school's diamond jubilee celebrations came to an end on last Saturday. Delhi high court chief justice Rajendra Menon was the chief guest at the function.