Education is an essential aspect of every individual’s life. The saying, ‘Learning is a process that starts from a mother’s womb and ends in one’s tomb,’ states the importance of education. While you may find every individual to be academically empowered, very few would also have value education. The significance of value education has increased over the years as it helps develop a well-balanced personality.
It is your responsibility, as a parent, to ensure that your child develops skills to not only survive in the real world but also thrive in it. While it is vital to ponder over matters such as choosing a career and preparing for the future, it is equally crucial to progress holistically and first become a good human being.
If the entire learning process is centralized and evaluation driven, there is a chance that students may not receive overall development. It is imperative to make the right choice of an academy for the student’s overall progress.
Hence, the academy’s environment should be enriching. Being one of the prominent names in the education sector, Lakshmipat Singhania Academy offers a highly flexible curriculum that caters to the development needs of students and has kept value education as a significant core element.
Under the coherent leadership of Ms Meena Kak, Director, the academy is among the forerunners of modern educational bodies in Kolkata; although still young in years, it has made considerable strides in becoming a school that has brought revolutionary changes in the mindset of the student body.
In an interview with Insights Success, Ms Meena shared valuable information highlighting the significance of Lakshmipat Singhania Academy (LSA) in the education sector.
Please enlighten our readers about Lakshmipat Singhania Academy and its commitment to its students and the education industry.
Established in 1996 and located in the upscale area of Alipore in Kolkata, Lakshmipat Singhania Academy stands for a community of learners and faculty dedicated to creating an academically robust, culturally caring niche.
The school is promoted by the Lakshmipat Singhania Education Foundation and aims at value-driven holistic education. In the Education World India School Rankings 2020-21, LSA has been ranked #2 in Kolkata and West Bengal in the co-ed day schools category for the past eight years. The institute is committed to facilitating its students’ “integrated personality development through a continuously evolving holistic curriculum.”
Tell us more about LSA’s uniqueness in providing amenities and educational programs for your students.
Over the years, the school has adopted contemporary teaching methods that bring out the students’ latent talent while enhancing their capacities for creativity and communication. Language Activity Class (LAC), Science Activity Class (SAC), and Math Activity Class (MAC) projects are an integral part of the curriculum to make the teaching-learning experience enriching.
The curriculum has been framed in such a way that art integration, experiential learning and life skills education are embedded in the teaching pedagogies, which provides students with a holistic accomplishment with every new lesson. Student evaluation is comprehensive and combines formative, summative, peer, and self-assessments to meet learning outcomes.
What are the USPs that highlight LSA’s presence as a recognized international school in the education industry?
Apart from developing international dimensions in the curriculum, the school aims to provide exposure to different cultures and lived experiences. AFS Intercultural and Exchange programmes are conducted to empower the students with global skills. Global exposures are offered in the form of competitions such as the International Space Settlement Design Competition. It gives us immense joy that LSA students had won NASA’s Space Settlement Design Competition (ISSDC) held in Florida (USA) in 2013, 2014, 2016 and 2019.
They have qualified for the international finals again after winning the Indian and the Asian rounds, which will be held in July this year. Multiculturality, coupled with infrastructural exuberance, aids the learners’ cognitive, emotional, and social development. We believe that early exposure to global curriculum and communities makes young minds realise our uniqueness in diversity and similarity in affinity.
What strategies and extra-curricular programs do you implement to increase the student’s engagement in your school?
LSA is committed to students’ wide-ranging development and hosts excellent sports and co-curricular education facilities. The campus provides facilities for sports such as chess, basketball, volleyball, throwball, cricket, archery, and roller skating. Polo and horse riding are outsourced. Students are mentored by committed coaches who identify and strengthen their talent beyond academics.
Two periods in the weekly timetable are allotted for co-curricular activities such as instrumental music, classical Indian and Western dance, drama, pottery, culinary skills, and robotics.
I am keeping up with the times, audio and video editing, cartooning/sketching, choreography, chess, coding, creative/script writing, debate, electrical gadgets, fashion design, French, German, mathematics, lensocraft, etc., catering to multiple intelligences and personality development.
Events like junior school fest Indradhanush, middle school fest Abhilasha, business fest Bullionaire, I.T. fest exe.BIT, psychology fest Iris, and Model United Nations provide a platform for the students to showcase their proficiency.
How do you plan to enhance LSA’s readiness in providing quality education?
The pandemic has changed the learning landscape, but it entered without any forewarning. Teachers and learners adapted with readiness. This skill to adapt oneself to the changing structure of education needs to be harnessed and scaled up across all fields of learning. Students should not only recall and understand but also analyse and create. For this, teachers are encouraged to take up continuous professional development opportunities. Hybrid and blended learning through I.T is the teaching transaction used to equip students and teachers with the teaching-learning strategies of the digital world.
How do you envision your school’s operations with the emerging technology and K-12 education that is revolutionizing the education industry?
The school is shifting from the conventional form of learning to the one through exploration, innovation and creative expression. There has been unprecedented acceleration in innovation in the education sector during and post-pandemic. As an educationist, I feel we need to tap this or perhaps add on to this outcome. We need to transform the education landscape in order to sustain those innovations for the times to come.
We have ICT enabled classrooms equipped with smart boards and projectors. Extensive use of e-learning platforms such as Olabs, Geogebra, Augmented Reality, Nearpod, Flipgrid, Mentimeter, AR Loopa, Assembler, Open Door etc., are encouraged to provide an engaging teaching experience.
Keeping the K12 system of education in mind, the scholastic and co-scholastic curriculum has been designed to maintain the mental maturity of the students. Assignments are framed to encourage the students to answer value-based questions stating their views and opinions. These are followed by a discussion forum, debate, role play etc. We wish to continue and further improvise this form of education eventually.
As an experienced professional, what would you like to advise the budding entrepreneurs willing to venture into the education niche?
The education sector is very dynamic in nature. If one wishes to venture into it, the first thing one needs to do is to be well-read and imbibe a 21st-century education mindset within oneself. Patience, I believe, is also a crucial factor here. It takes years of dedication and faith to carve one’s niche. The pandemic has taught us the essence of adaptability. An entrepreneur, too, needs to have a dynamic approach and adapt to the changing needs of the time.
