The New Era High School (or NEHS) is located in

Panchgani Panchgani, called Paachgani (पाचगणी in Marathi), is a hill station and municipal council in Satara district in Maharashtra, India. Panchgani attracts tourists throughout the year. It is also known for having many residential educat ...

, a hill station town known as an educational centre, in the state of

Maharashtra Maharashtra (; , abbr. MH or Maha) is a states and union territories of India, state in the western India, western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. Maharashtra is the List of states and union te ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. It is a private

co-educational Mixed-sex education, also known as mixed-gender education, co-education, or coeducation (abbreviated to co-ed or coed), is a system of education where males and females are educated together. Whereas single-sex education was more common up to t ...

international International is an adjective (also used as a noun) meaning "between nations". International may also refer to: Music Albums * ''International'' (Kevin Michael album), 2011 * ''International'' (New Order album), 2002 * ''International'' (The T ...

Baháʼí school A Baháʼí school at its simplest would be a school run officially by the Baháʼí institutions in its jurisdiction and may be a local class or set of classes, normally run weekly where children get together to study about Baháʼí teachings, ...

, drawing students from all over the world and is under the supervision of the

National Spiritual Assembly Spiritual Assembly is a term given by ʻAbdu'l-Bahá to refer to elected councils that govern the Baháʼí Faith. Because the Baháʼí Faith has no clergy, they carry out the affairs of the community. In addition to existing at the local level ...

of the Baháʼís of India.

History

It was founded in August 1945, and was one of the first Baháʼí education projects in India. In the 1970s and 1980s, the school setup programmes to assist the poor and underdeveloped villages in the region.History: 1971-1982
/ref> It started as a service project for students and evolved into a separate institution known as the New Era Development Institute in 1987.History: 1982-1998
/ref> The National Spiritual Assembly of Norway established an institution - Norwegian Agency for International Development Cooperation - and in 1988 it began a working relationship with the institute, with support for a two-year rural community development program. In 1989, funding was extended to cover a one-year community development facilitators course and short courses on agriculture, rural technology, literacy, and domestic science. NEHS is one of the top boarding schools in India. It did have a higher secondary school (11th-12th) till 1999, but discontinued it from 2000. Class 11th and 12th have been reintroduced from 2010 and the school offers Science and Commerce fields. The shooting of the film ''"

Taare Zameen Par ''Taare Zameen Par'', also known as ''Like Stars on Earth'' in English, is a 2007 Indian Hindi-language drama film produced and directed by Aamir Khan. The film stars Khan himself, along with Darsheel Safary, Tanay Chheda, Sachet Engineer, Vip ...

"'' took place here. The school played host to ''"Amul Junior MasterChef Swaad ke Ustaad"'' (a cooking reality show) where the contestants prepared food for the students of the school. The show was aired on Star Plus on 26 October 2013. Prominent students include Twinkle and Rinke Khanna - daughters of the Indian actress Dimple. The principal Dr. Mehrassa supervises the school from Canada, Mr. Kalmadi is the acting principal. The school regularly reaches district level in sports such as football, basketball and cricket.

Site and facilities

The present site was moved into in 1953 and consisted of five buildings.History: 1945-1971
/ref> A play field and several added dormitories in 1980s gave the school the room to add over 900 students bringing the total student population to over 1000. In the 1990s the campus went through massive infrastructure growth and renovation - gaining its own power plant, campus fencing, intercom system, phone system for students, parents and staff, three wells, solar heating for the dining hall and a large garden. Computers handle student records, accounts, maintenance, personnel, and other administrative areas as well as facilitating student-parent communication.History: 1998-2003
/ref>

Programme

Special attention is given to academic excellence, moral education, specifically noted by the

Universal House of Justice The Universal House of Justice ( fa, بیت‌العدل اعظم) is the nine-member supreme ruling body of the Baháʼí Faith. It was envisioned by Baháʼu'lláh, the founder of the Baháʼí Faith, as an institution that could legislate o ...

, values for world citizenship, and social and economic development in rural areas. Subject areas significantly expanded through the 1990s to include advances across the K-12 curriculum with peace and cooperative learning programs, computer training programs and extracurricular sports clubs and educational field trips.

Accreditation and awards

The school was registered with the state in 1954 and the first students took their external examinations in 1958. Gloria Faizi,

Abu'l-Qásim Faizi Abu'l-Qásim Faizi or Fayḍí (1906–1980) was a Persian Baháʼí. He studied at the American University of Beirut where he was good friends with Munib Shahid. He married Gloria ʻAláʼí in 1939. Together they pioneered to Iraq and Bahrain ...

's wife, helped bring the school onto a more financial status by providing leadership and attracting investments. The current accreditation includes the standard ten high school exam of the

Central Board of Secondary Education The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) is a national level board of education in India for public and private schools, controlled and managed by the Government of India. Established in 1929 by a resolution of the government, the Board ...

though it is increasingly switching to

Indian Certificate of Secondary Education The Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) is an examination conducted by the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations, a private board designed to provide an examination in a course of general education, in accordance wi ...

. The Secondary Section in 2007 received top awards for all of

(with additional high marks in specific subject areas) *100% passed result with average score of 73.54% *Set a new record of highest average 94.6% *Number of students appeared - 102 *48 students (47%) secured Distinction ( above 75%) *43 students (42%) secured First Class (above 60%) *11 students (11%) secured Second Class The Secondary Science program won awards in 2003 (National Level Science Talent Search Examination and Best Participation Award in the NSTSE) The Secondary Computer Science curriculum serves the

International General Certificate of Secondary Education The International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) is an English language based examination similar to GCSE and is recognised in the United Kingdom as being equivalent to the GCSE for the purposes of recognising prior attainm ...

.Computers, Information & Communication Technology
/ref> The Secondary Arts program can support students reaching for the annual

Government of Maharashtra The Government of Maharashtra is the state governing authority for the state of Maharashtra, India. It is a democratically elected government with 288 MLAs elected to the Vidhan Sabha for a five-year term. Maharashtra has a Maharashtra Legisla ...

Elementary and Intermediate Art Exams. All topic areas have vocational courses The school is ranked 64th across India by a broad range of criteria. In 2005/6, New Era High School two students ranked 857th and 1824th (over 2000 were ranked) across all Indian students competing for the Amul Shakti Vidyashree award.

Primary Section

Along with standard academic and arts subject areas, and multilingual programs begin, a featured area is values education (including Peace Education, Conflict Resolution, and Environmental Education.)

Secondary Section

In addition to the awards winning academic and arts subjects areas, most subject areas develop extension programs - poly-lingual plays, student quiz teams, and community outreach. The computer system, especially present in the Secondary Section, is

Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearly ...

based systems, along with applications like

NetBeans NetBeans is an integrated development environment (IDE) for Java (programming language), Java. NetBeans allows applications to be developed from a set of modular software components called ''modules''. NetBeans runs on Microsoft Windows, Windows, ...

MySQL MySQL () is an open-source relational database management system (RDBMS). Its name is a combination of "My", the name of co-founder Michael Widenius's daughter My, and "SQL", the acronym for Structured Query Language. A relational database o ...

for subjects like

Informatics Practices Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (including t ...

School culture

The school developed a residential

prefect Prefect (from the Latin ''praefectus'', substantive adjectival form of ''praeficere'': "put in front", meaning in charge) is a magisterial title of varying definition, but essentially refers to the leader of an administrative area. A prefect's ...

-oriented system. The prefect body consists of thirty-two students who represent four virtues - Peace, Respect, Harmony and Wisdom. One of the senior students is appointed as Head Girl or Head Boy.

In popular culture

The second half of

Aamir Khan Mohammed Aamir Hussain Khan (; born 14 March 1965) is an Indian actor, film director and producer who works in Hindi films. Through his career spanning over 30 years, Khan has established himself as one of the most notable actors of Indian ci ...

's film, ''

'' was shot in the school.

References

* ''Rowley, Elizabeth Anne''. (1980) New Era High School: an ethnographic study of an International Baháʼí school in India. Thesis (M.A.) --

University of Georgia , mottoeng = "To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.""To serve" was later added to the motto without changing the seal; the Latin motto directly translates as "To teach and to inquire into the nature of things." , establ ...

(Athens), 1980.

External links

Official WebsiteBaháʼí Schools in India
{{Coord missing, Maharashtra Bahá'í educational institutions International schools in India Boarding schools in Maharashtra High schools and secondary schools in Maharashtra Education in Satara district Panchgani Educational institutions established in 1945 1945 establishments in India