Mr. Narayana Murthy, Members of the Board, Ladies and Gentlemen,
On behalf of The Doon School Community I wish you a warm welcome on the occasion of the school's 64th Founder's Day celebrations. It is only appropriate on such an occasion to acknowledge with gratitude the vision of our Founder, Shri Satish Ranjan Das, who, though he was not to live to see it, perceived a school that would serve modern India by training its young men in a milieu of excellence, to strive and to excel.
This is the time to give thanks for the Founding Governors and the teachers who followed this vision with conviction, selfless endeavour and a spirit of adventure.
This is the time to acknowledge the many who have honoured the name of their school in their chosen fields by earning respect for their achievements.
In this connection we offer our greetings and good wishes to the Class of '74 who are here to celebrate their Silver Jubilee and to the Class of '49 celebrating their Golden Jubilee. We share in the joy of your renewed fellowship and assure you that the ideals that touched your lives here, live on.
Barring hot water baths, and a few creature comforts in the houses there is a link with the past, in the long activity-filled day, the emphasis on self-reliance, the regimen of daily sport and activity and the school's expectation of integrity and dependability. While we continue to debate over the equation of time spent on activity in relation to that given to study we know that the opportunities offered through play are responsible for the hallmark confidence of the Doon School boy, past or present. As many who are seated here today will confirm, leisure pursuits of a life time were formed here, not omitting mention also of career choices that arose out of spare time activity. What then, of swelling syllabuses and competitive academic standards? Are we impervious? Not at all. Learning resources in the library, in the computer centre and in our new science laboratories are among the best available anywhere, and in the last few years we have provided additional academic time at the senior level. But all the sophisticated equipment notwithstanding, our biggest asset is the teacher. It is his personal care alone that determines the quality of a boy's life here. Robert Frost speaks of two kinds of teachers in his school days; one who filled him up with so many facts that he sank like a stone and the other who touched his heart and mind and sent him soaring to the stars. In the same way this school is at its best wherever personal care in the individual is expressed.
If examination results can be considered a basis for judgment we have made a few strides forward in academics. 96 students appeared in the ICSE '99 examination and 94 were successful. Spandan was placed 1st in the batch with 93% marks. 9 other boys, Keshav Balljee, Deep Shawak, Kunal Kumbhat, Akhil Wable, Dwaipayan Banerjee, Mayank Rao, Anant Prasad, Shadan Farasat and Ranit Windlass also secured above 90% marks.
71 students appeared in the ISC examination and all were declared successful. The best result were secured by Saurabh Kapoor and Shaurya Arora with 92% marks. Six others obtained above 90% marks, viz. Vivek Khemka, Akash Chhotray, Anirban Mukherjee, Gauravjit Singh, Mohit Verma and Saurabh Deshpande. 50% of the students in this batch secured above 80% marks. We were glad that the placements in colleges after Class XII this year were more in line with the aspirations of students and parents.
Staff
The following masters resigned their posts in the course of the year to take up other appointments: Mr. Krishnendu Chakravarty in March '99, Mr. Jaideep Chaudhary and Mr. Janajit Ray in June '99. Capt. Swaran Singh and Mr. A.Z. Khan retired, the former after 14 years in service as the School Physical Training Instructor and the latter after 18 years as Head of the Art and Crafts Department. Ms. A. Chahal retired after 17 years as Matron of Jaipur House.
The school was saddened at the untimely death of Mr. Bhuvan Vaishnava after a long illness on January the 20th, 1999 at the age of 52. He had served the school with devotion for 28 years.
The following staff joined this year: Mr. Pankaj Joshi, Ms. Smeeta Basu and Mr. B.K. Chamola, Mathematics; Mr. Mahesh P.N., Physics; Mr. S.B. Davidson and Mrs. Renu Vahali, English; Mr. Ambikesh Shukla, Computers; Mr. S.M. Dargan, Commerce and Accounts; and Mr. Manjit Singh, Physical Training Instructor. Mrs. N. Vaishnava has joined us as Matron of Jaipur House.
1.Dr. Ganguli attended a basic leadership course at the XLRI, Jamshedpur in October, '98.
2.Mr. Burrett represented the school in an international educational conference on Leadership at the Wellington College, U.K., in April, '99.
3.Mr. J.H.H. Lal attended the management development programme on Strategic Management of Technology and Innovation in September '99 at Jamshedpur.
4.Mr. Vakkayil attended training programmes in the use of Library Management Software.
It is the responsibility of the school to provide opportunities to its teachers to increase their awareness in patterns in educational administration and practice that can enrich their professional lives. Seminars were held through our Teachers' Centre for all teaching staff on the principles of Total Quality Management. At this time all teaching staff have completed a basic course in computers. In the course of the year the Teachers' Centre conducted over 20 workshops and seminars on a wide range of teaching applications.
In a full year of sport we had a successful hockey season where we won the Council Schools' tournament for the 3rd year in succession. In basketball Ankan Bhattacharya, Suryajaideo Singh and Ajit Dhillon played in National tournaments.
We were also glad to obtain the services of a good boxing coach, former Asian Games Champion, Padam Bahadur Mall, who helped raise the standard in the course of the season. Although we have qualified coaches for practically every School sport, our sportsmen, particularly of individual sports, are facing high standards in competition today. It seems imperative that decisions on selective participation will have to be made at a senior level, to promote greater attention to the skills of the game.
The International Award for Young People, while maintaining stringent standards in its evaluation, made 26 Gold, 19 Silver and 21 Bronze awards in the course of the year. The school hosted the 12th Australian Regional Training of IAYP between the 1st and 4th of November. The workshop was attended by delegates from Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, Pakistan and India.
Our interest in drama got a fillip when Naseeruddin Shah and his group presented Samuel Backett's 'Waiting for Godot', on 3rd November '98 in the Rosebowl. The excellence of this play following close upon the heels of Phyllis Bose's production of 'The Fireraisers' last Founder's Day touched the imagination of boys who are keen on theatre as was evidenced in their self-directed prize winning entry, 'Child's Play', for the Council Schools' One Act Play competition and the exceptional performances of the Inter-House One act Play competition, in May '99. Our summer production was the popular drama, 'Court Martial' in Hindi, deftly directed by Mr. Hammad Farooqui. In an interesting cross-cultural experiment, Hammad Farooqui has directed the Founder's Day English Production of Bemard Shaw's 'Androcles & the Lion' in the version adapted in Bengali by Badal Sircar and translated back into English by Minakshi Basu of our faculty.
The Superama Scholarship award for the best contribution to Hindi theatre went to Rohit Vats and the Vimal Bhagat award for excellence in theatre in English to Veer Nanavatty.
Debating and quizzing continued as prominent and very successful activities in school. Leading from the front, Mr. Ajai Banerji, Master-in charge of quizzing, won the zonal semi finals of the Master Mind Quiz, telecast by the BBC. In the field of writing, Abhishek Singhania was awarded the first place in the essay contest organized by the embassy of the Republic of South Korea in February, 1999 and B. Chandrasen Rao won a place in the Albert Barrow Memorial All India Essay Writing Contest.
Our music department had a particularly active year, presenting concerts in Dehra Dun, Delhi and Mussoorie. The Inter House Music competition, held this October over two evenings, was a tribute to the hard work and merit of the music department.
We have been active with the Round Square, the international association of schools which finds a common ground for its educational objectives of empirical learning and service. Delegations of masters and students visited Bangladesh in December '98 and Ajmer in September '99 and Germany this October to deliberate on youth issues at home and abroad. Our students also participated in development projects near home in Solan and abroad in Thailand.
In the wake of devastation by the Chamoli earthquake on 29th March this year the school launched a relief project aptly named Project Rebuild, in a remote Garhwali village near Ukhimath. The boys made substantial personal contributions to the funds collected and the music school raised Rs. 80,000 in two Charity Concerts. We deeply appreciate the personal interest of our Dehra Dun friends, as well as parents of the school, who supported this cause, taking the total funds raised to Rs. 4 lacs. Madhav Saraswat and Arvind Chalasani led a team of 12 boys from the Doon School and 3 boys from Bishop Cotton School, Shimla, to work for a week in the village of Gaid, establishing temporary shelters for 30 homeless families to see the monsoon out. The team will return to the same village again in December, this time with a company of over 40 people, including representatives of schools from India and abroad, to build a .......continued on
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