Resurrecting the old glory of A.S. Senior Secondary School, Khanna
J.V. Yakhmi*
Summary: The lost glory of education standards of the 112 years old heritage school at Khanna could be resurrected by corrective actions taken by the teachers and the Management, in response to a carefully worded critique published in the press.
On June 1, 2017, The Tribune published an article ‘Lessons in apathy’ written by me lamenting about the results of students of Class X in A.S. Senior Secondary School, Khanna (Punjab Board), which used to be about 80 per cent before 2010, but came sliding down annually after 2011 — from 55 per cent to 46 per cent to 42 per cent to 57 per cent to 33 per cent to 32 per cent — and finally to an abysmal low of 14.2 per cent in 2017. Out of the 183 students who appeared for the Class X exam of the Punjab Board in 2017, only 26 had passed.
I and several of my classmates, who passed out in 1962, with flying colours from this 112 years old school having a ‘heritage’ building, were mighty upset at this worrisome performance. Clearly, the teachers had not been able to engage with the students, adequately.
The after-effect of the above-mentioned article was that the management and staff sat up and met a few times to discuss how to improve the results of this school, and even work for resurrecting its old glory. Indeed, this school had been a trail-blazer in school education for decades. I was told that the management and the school took corrective measures and the students started responding, positively.
The good news that everyone was waiting for, including the teachers, the students, the management, or the alumni like me was conveyed earlier this year by the Principal of this school, Sh. Inderjit Singh. He stated that no student had failed from among the 128 who appeared for the Class X exam of the Punjab Board for the session 2023–24. The top three positions in the school were scored by the students named Simranpreet Kaur, Jashanpreet Kaur, and Naina who scored 86.92 per cent, 86 per cent, and 77.69 per cent, respectively. A few students did get compartment in different subjects, but their number is small and the school believed that they would clear their compartments, at the earliest opportunity.
This is a recognition of the efforts made by the Management, the Principal, the staff, and students who worked hard to redeem the results, and their parents, too, for supporting their wards and the school, all along. Some friends have been asking how the above miracle has happened. Frankly, I live in Mumbai, and am not associated with the Managing Committee of this school, and cannot hazard a guess on which actions taken by the school brought this positive transition. Perhaps the remedial measures were many and were at micro-management level, with regular monitoring.
I was, nonetheless, keen to know how the positive turnaround in the results of my alma mater came about. Besides, it would be helpful for other schools, in similar situation, to know what brought home the bacon, so to say. Therefore, I continued further discussions with the Principal. He opined that the remedial measures taken evolved essentially from regular feedbacks to him by the teachers, which he encouraged. Broadly speaking, these measures were: providing extra practice materials by the school; conducting regular tests of different subjects; welcoming parents’ involvement during PTMs; and checking the attendance of all students, regularly. The Principal also stated that the Management and Trustees of the school extended their whole-hearted support in implementing these actions.
That the school indeed had turned the corner was confirmed also from the highly positive results posted by the school for its Class VIII and Class XII students!
The pass percentage for the 78 students who appeared for Class VIII exams of the session 2023–24 was 96 per cent.
From among the 378 students who appeared for the Class XII exams during the 2023–24 session, the pass percentage was 81 per cent, which increased to 97.35 per cent if compartment cases were also included. Among these, the pass percentage for 51 students who appeared for the science stream was 100 per cent, with no students getting compartment! From among 68 students who appeared for commerce, it was 100 per cent success with 97 per cent passed, and compartment for 2 students. It is only the Humanities stream which still needs a further push as it showed a pass percentage of 73 per cent from amongst 260 students who appeared for the 2023–24 session, though it rose to 96 per cent if we count the compartment received by 60 students. The only failures among Class XII students were 10 students from the Humanities stream.
I am happy, as several well-wishers are, that the school has turned the corner. The remedial steps implemented by the school kept yielding better results, progressively, from 2020 itself.
Let us hope that once again, like in old times, batch after batch of bright students will pass out from this school and move on to enrich the streams of academics, professional and administrative sectors both nationally and internationally, as in the past, and contribute to the growth of the society at large.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
*Ex-Chairman, Atomic Energy Education Society, DAE, Mumbai. Email: ya_kmi@yahoo.com
