St. Xavier's High School is a

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secondary school located in

Darsi Darsi is a municipality town in Prakasam district of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It is the mandal headquarters of Darsi mandal in Kanigiri revenue division. It is located at the foot of the Nallamala Hills. It is approximately away fr ...

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (ISO 15919, ISO: , , AP) is a States and union territories of India, state on the East Coast of India, east coast of southern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, seventh-largest state and th ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. Established in 1993 by the

Society of Jesus The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rome. It was founded in 1540 ...

, the school serves 500 tribal and

Dalit Dalit ( from meaning "broken/scattered") is a term used for untouchables and outcasts, who represented the lowest stratum of the castes in the Indian subcontinent. They are also called Harijans. Dalits were excluded from the fourfold var ...

children who had little educational opportunity. The school depends on financial contributions for its maintenance.

History

In 1993, the Jesuit Fr. Peter Daniel began this school mainly for the low caste Dalit working children. The school is in a very underdeveloped area of the Jesuit Darsi Mission, in the

Prakasam district Prakasam district is one of the twelve districts in the coastal Andhra region of the States and union territories of India, Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It was formed in 1970 and reorganised on 4 April 2022. The headquarters of the district is ...

of Andhra Pradesh, and accommodates more than 500 children. Many families in this area are not educated or conscious of the value of education, and economic pressures force them to involve their children in farm work and herding

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from a young age. Girls often leave school to look after younger children and many boys leave at school at age 13 to assist with the family labour, which fills about 150 days a year depending on the monsoon season. Darsi school offers a secondary education to the poorest children. It admits children with disabilities or affected by HIV, offers tutors especially for those children whose parents are illiterate, and provides free boarding facilities. The school, along with meals and health care, are sustained by charitable donations. Donations from the UK provided for a

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water purifying plant to make clean drinking water available to the students. Separate hostels house 446 Dalit boys and girls while they attend St. Xavier's High School. It is a private school without government funding for teachers' salaries, but some students are assisted by Andhra Pradesh government hostel facilities that are open to several schools.

References

{{coord missing, Andhra Pradesh Private schools in Andhra Pradesh Christian schools in Andhra Pradesh Jesuit secondary schools in India Schools in Prakasam district Jesuit development centres 1993 establishments in Andhra Pradesh Educational institutions established in 1993

History

See also

References