"History is a storehouse of human experience and as such an irreplaceable educator. For sure knowledge of the past lets us draw upon earlier human experience, facilitating our leap into the future with a sense of ease and confidence." Fr Vijay Kumar Prabhu, SJ in"The Burning Bush: The History of Karnataka Jesuit Province"by Fr Devadatta Kamath, SJ

Tuesday, February 22, 2022

Loyola Bangalore

LOYOLA HIGH SCHOOL, Mt. St. Joseph, Bannerghatta Road

(Inception and Expansion)

BANGALORE JESUIT EDUCATIONAL SOCIETY runs many educational institutions. Loyola High School is one of them. The birth of LOYOLA SCHOOL in 1982 (at Mount Saint Joseph, Kalena Agrahara village) was a result of BJES’ policy of option for the poor. This is the first fully Kannada Medium School run by the BJES in a rural area.  It had a humble beginning. It was started in a shed near Kalena Agrahara – to serve the need of so many villages in this vast area just outside the city in Bangalore South where there was no high school in a radius of more than 10 kms. There wasn't a necessity of starting a Primary School because there were already 03 Higher Primary schools in neighbouring villages. 

Fr Alexis Menezes, the then Rector of  Mt. St. Joseph, has left behind a manuscript in which he writes thus “The decision to open the School was taken at the Province Sammelan of May 1982.  The permission to open a High School at Mount Saint Joseph was announced by the Govt in its gazette notification of July 7, 1982. In the application, the name of the school was proposed as Mount Saint Joseph High School, but soon after the school started, it was realised that for the students as well as the people of the area MSJ was a mouthful, too difficult to utter. A proposal was therefore made to the Department to change the name to Loyola highschool. The proposal was approved and hence all documents pertaining to the school are under this name...... The 17 students who were admitted were....pulled out from their homes to have a sizable group to start with........The school began functioning from July 12, 1983..... besides special fee no other fees were charged”)

EXPANSION

Kannada medium Primary School: Since serving the poor was the priority, the school did not even think of introducing uniform to children. The poor deserve the best- so a beautiful building was constructed for the school in 1984.  Soon the Jesuits discovered that the really poor did not come to this High School because they were not in a position to complete even Primary School. Even from the immediate village of Kalena Agrahara, very few reached the high school stage because quality education was not imparted in existing Primary schools around.  Hence the Jesuits felt the need to start their own Primary school. Accordingly Primary School was started in 1989.

English medium Primary 6th and 7th Std: In 2012, 2013

English medium High school 8th, 9th & 10th: In 2014, 2015, 2016

PU College: In 2008

Degree College: In 2017

Presently, all the above units except Kannada medium Primary school, are functioning in one building, under one roof. 

No comments:

Post a Comment