We believe in nurturing innate talent of students and giving a free hand to their expressions, in whichever form they might be, says Nellie Ahmed, Founder and Managing Trustee, Maria’s Public School, Guwahati, in conversation with Elets News Network (ENN).
What are the key strengths of Maria’s Public School (MPS)?
The ‘Key Strengths’ of MPS are distributed and diverse in terms of planning and execution of ideas, action plans and activities. The student-teacher bond at MPS is by far the most prominent strength through which ideas and problem solving abilities are nurtured in a space, where expressions, in whichever form they might be, are given space and time to get recognised.
What are the industry best practices that MPS follows?
MPS studies and recognises many best practices of the education industry, and strives to customise them in sync with the vision and mission of the school – ‘Learning Beyond the Classroom’. It is this vision with which the best practices are woven with. Collaboration is by far the most prominent one, through which the school has been able to establish exchange of information, projects with rural schools of Assam and Meghalaya, and has been able to execute collaborative projects with the partner schools within not only Guwahati but also with more than 10 schools across India. Taking collaboration as a best practice, MPS also engages with partner schools in countries like Uruguay, the USA, Brazil, UK, Australia, Jordan, Nepal and Bangladesh. Sustainable partnership is also another best practice through which a local- to- global connect is established by the school. Today, IT is facilitating learning in many ways.
How is MPS using latest IT tools for holistic development of students?
We follow the regular CBSE curriculum for Information Technology and Computer Science which itself is an updated course giving exposure to the latest Computer Languages (BASIC, QBASIC, LOGO, C++, Python, Java, Html) and Technology – My SQL, Visual Basic, Netbeams, SCRETCH, TASK PAINT. MPS has well-equipped labs for the students, right from primary to the senior secondary with around 55 machines in the primary and senior secondary sections. The school also introduces the students to MINDSPARK, an educational tool involving online mathematics curriculum and tests. For this, we have dedicated laboratory which has 50 Laptops equipped with latest proprietary software.
What is the vision and mission of the school for the years ahead?
The primary vision and the mission of the school for the future is overall expansion of the school – which includes upgrade and evolution in the academic, co-curricular and infrastructural development areas. Also, balancing the learning outcomes, critical thinking and problem-solving techniques is the way in which MPS wants to move ahead of the time, along with keeping the student and the teaching community abreast in both competitive and noncompetitive environment.
What steps are being taken by MPS for nurturing life-skills of students?
The concept of imparting education through life-skills has transcended from schools’ earlier activities of engagement of the students to exposing them to a focus on the present-day world’s challenges, where they have to learn the 21st Century Paradigms of life skill training. The students are made to face real-life problems and encouraged to come up with solutions using their own innate talents. MPS is now a ‘Round Square School’, which means that the life skill training is now already upgraded through the ‘Six Ideals of Round Square’– Internationalism, Democracy, Environmental Stewardship, Adventure, Leadership and Service. The sole aim of the MPS Educational Structure is to keep its life skill curriculum adhered to these ideals.
