Sunbeam School, Lahartara (Varanasi)

Ranked Varanasi’s No. 1 school for the second year in succession in the EW India School Rankings 2012, Sunbeam Lahartara is set to celebrate its tenth anniversary this year

Sited in the sacred city of Varanasi (pop.3 million), the CBSE-affiliated K-12 Sunbeam School, Lahartara (estb. 2002) has speedily acquired an excellent reput-ation in the Hindi heartland state of Uttar Pradesh, for offering exemplary academic and extra-curricular education supported by modern infrastructure and sports facilities. In the recently released EducationWorld India School Rankings 2012 conducted by Delhi-based market research agency C fore, Sunbeam Lahartara is ranked Varanasi’s No. 1 school for the second year in suc-cession, and fifth best in Uttar Pradesh (pop. 200 million). Next month (Nove-mber), the co-educational Sunbeam will commence year-long celebrations to commemorate its tenth anniversary.

“Sunbeam Lahartara was promoted to offer contemporary, activity-based education to empower students to reach their full potential. I believe over the past decade, we have successfully delivered high-quality new ICT (infor-mation communications technology)-driven primary and secondary education with strong focus on personality development and multiple intelligences. We are committed to producing future-ready, thinking, caring and confident youth equipped with a sound found-ational education which will enable them to assume leadership positions anyw-here in the world,” says Sudha Singh, a zoology postgrad of Punjabi University, Patiala, who served with Sunbeam (Annapurna) before signing up with Sunbeam Lahartara in 2002, and was appointed principal in 2005.

Significantly for a ten-year-old institution, Sunbeam Lahartara, which boasts a student enrolment of 2,300 (including 120 boarders) instructed by 120 faculty, has an enviable reputation for producing outstanding board exam results. In 2012, of the 228 students who wrote the class XII CBSE board exam, 224 were ranked in the first division. Moreover 12 students also qualified for admission into the country’s premier IITs. 

Promoted in 2002 by former bureaucrat Deepak Madhok, Sunbeam Lahartara has emerged as the show-piece school of the Sunbeam Group which comprises 17 educational instit-utions including three K-12 schools, four hostels, a women’s college, and school for the underprivileged with an aggregate enrolment of 20,000 students.

The seeds of the Sunbeam Group were sown way back in 1972 in Bhagwanpur (Varanasi) by Dr. Amrit Lal ‘lshrat’ Madhok and Deesh ‘Ishrat’ Madhok who voluntarily undertook a mission to promote private, indep-endent institutions to deliver high quality English-medium education to the vast majority of children deprived of it in India’s largest Hindi-speaking state. In 1990, their son Deepak, an alumnus of Benaras Hindu and Allahabad univer-sities, resigned from a senior position in the state civil services commission to carry his parents’ mission forward, and over the past two decades has trans-formed the Sunbeam Group into the fastest growing education conglomerate in Uttar Pradesh.

The distinguishing characteristic of all Sunbeam institutions is their excellent infrastructure and co-curricular and sports facilities. A stone’s throw from the Varanasi railway station, Sunbeam Lahartara is similarly well-equipped. Sited on a two-acre plot in a four-storied building with a built-up area of 125,000 sq.ft, it offers 52 spacious classrooms, state-of-the-art computer, science and math labora-tories, multimedia rooms, a teachers’ resource centre, counseling information centre, and multipurpose auditorium. The junior and senior libraries host 5,000 volumes with 30 journal subscriptions. A fleet of buses equipped with safety tracking systems transport children to and from school.

Sports facilities include a large playground with standard basketball, volleyball and badminton courts. Additionally, there are demarcated indoor chess, table tennis and carom arenas. Co-curricular education is a major focus area and the school offers 35 options including drama, yoga, music, and karate. “We accord great importance to co-curricular and sports education with several activities being compulsory for students. Academics is important, but it needs to be supplemented with co-curricular and sports education to produce well-rounded adults,” says Sudha Singh.

Community service is also an important thrust area of the school. “This July, we started our Nai Roshni initiative to enhance the literacy of underprivileged children. Under this programme, our school is open six days per week for two and a half hours beyond school hours for children from poor households in the neighbourhood. These children follow a specially prepared curriculum which apart from academics includes music, dance, sports and fine arts,” says Singh.

With Sunbeam Lahartara success-fully crossing the critical tenth anniversary milestone, Madhok is confident about the future. “I am satisfied that in a decade, Sunbeam has transformed the educationally backward city of Varanasi by offering the option of a globally benchmarked K-12 school. By setting high standards, we have succeeded in raising the bar in school education across the city and beyond. But we are committed to continuous improvement and have set ourselves the target of becoming the No.1 day school in Uttar Pradesh. To this end, on the occasion of our tenth anniversary we have drawn up an intensive teacher training and support programme, and have signed several international collaboration and student exchange agreements,” says Madhok, who has also promoted a turnkey education solutions company Sunbeam Eduserve, which manages all 17 Sunbeam institu-tions, and has aided the promotion of 11 associate/franchised schools in Jaunpur, Allahabad, Ghazipur, Mau, Bhadohi, Deoria Narayanpur, Ballia and Faizabad (all in UP).

Paromita Sengupta