ASN Senior Secondary School, Delhi

Since its modest beginning 43 years ago, ASN has steadily evolved and established itself as a top-ranked CBSE school in the national capital, whose students are readily admitted into reputed higher ed institutions including the IITs - Swati Roy

RANKED AMONG DELHI’S Top 50 co-educational day schools in the EducationWorld India School Rankings 2017-18, the CBSE-affiliated Adarsh Shiksha Niketan Senior Secondary School (ASN) has earned an excellent reputation for providing high-quality academic and extra-curricular education in a contemporary learning environment. 

Promoted in 1975 by educationist Shri Krishna Lal Luthra and managed by the Sanatan Dharam Adarsh Shiksha Sansthan trust (estb.1973), the school admitted its first batch of 20 students in the Luthra home four decades ago. In 1991 the school moved to a new 3.5-acre state-of-the-art campus in Delhi’s bustling Mayur Vihar. Currently, ASN has 3,285 students and 155 teachers on its muster rolls. 

Since its modest beginning 43 years ago, ASN has steadily evolved and established itself as a top-ranked CBSE school in the national capital, whose students are readily admitted into reputed higher ed institutions including St. Stephen’s, Shri Ram College of Commerce, Lady Shri Ram College and the Indian Institutes of Technology. Moreover, its adoption of sustainable environment-friendly practices won it the Green Leaf School Award of the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment, the well-known environment think tank, for three consecutive years (2015-17). ASN is also the first primary-secondary in the country to be designated a Sustainable Development Goals Laboratory of the United Nations Information Centre for India and Bhutan.

“Our objective is to provide well-balanced education which blends academic rigour, sports and co-curricular activities to develop 21st century skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving and creativity in an IT-enabled learning environment. This focus on holistic education combined with excellent infrastructure and innovative pedagogies has enabled us to produce socially and environmentally conscious students rooted in Indian values and culture,” says Sonia Luthra, principal of ASN Senior Secondary School. An alumna of Delhi University, Luthra signed up with the school in 1996 as a maths teacher and was promoted to the office of principal in 2011. 

Over the past four decades, the ASN management has liberally invested in the construction of modern academic and extra-curricular education facilities. The school’s 3.5-acre state-of-the-art campus is dominated by a four-storey building housing 84 well-ventilated and IT-enabled classrooms, a library with 41,000 book titles and 50 magazine and journal subscriptions in addition to class libraries, and 17 laboratories including five computer, science, mathematics and language labs. The school is also equipped with an ATAL Tinkering Laboratory, established with a grant of Rs.20 lakh from the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog. Moreover, in 2017 ASN was conferred a special EducationWorld Grand Jury Award for promoting exceptional library and reading culture.

Expansive sports education facilities are provided for basketball, football, cricket, lawn tennis, table tennis, volleyball, badminton, roller-skating, judo and taekwondo. A 2,200-seats auditorium serves as a venue for cultural events with students encouraged to participate in the activities of the school’s 21 clubs including robotics, heritage, dramatics and literacy associations. The school’s solar-powered campus also hosts a well-maintained herbal garden and four rainwater harvesting plants. 

“Sports and co-curricular activities are integrated into the school’s curriculum to develop students’ multiple intelligences and talents. Our students also actively participate in community service and outreach programmes of the Yamuna Khadar village in north-east Delhi and have organised social campaigns on gender equality, United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, road safety etc. The school’s well-qualified teachers are mandated to regularly attend professional development workshops conducted by CBSE and other teacher training organisations to enable balanced development of our children,” says Luthra.

The school management’s emphasis on delivering well-balanced academic, co-curricular and extra-curricular education, has paid handsome dividends. Last year, 25.8 percent of the school’s 244-strong cohort who wrote the class XII CBSE school-leaving exam, averaged 90 percent-plus, while the average percentage was 81.1. Encouraging internationalism is also an important focus area of the school’s management. ASN has signed up international exchange programmes with schools in South Korea, Germany and the UK. 

Looking ahead, the management’s focus in the next quinquennium will be upgradation of infrastructure and integration of learner-centric IT-enabled pedagogies into the curriculum. “During the past four decades, we have established a reputation for delivering values-based schooling and producing socially and environmentally conscious graduates. The next few years will be an era of consolidation and contemporisation of our curriculum and pedagogies. However, we will continue to provide K-12 education deeply rooted in Indian culture and values to enable our school-leavers to build on India’s glorious education and cultural heritage,” says Luthra.