Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Av­o­cat Vedic Pri­ma­ry School is set to mark a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone on No­vem­ber 1, cel­e­brat­ing its 70th an­niver­sary.

Found­ed in 1954, the in­sti­tu­tion has evolved through the years while hold­ing on to its core val­ues, emerg­ing as a cor­ner­stone of ed­u­ca­tion in the south west­ern com­mu­ni­ty of Fyz­abad, as well as fos­ter­ing aca­d­e­m­ic ex­cel­lence and cul­tur­al her­itage.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia on Wednes­day, school prin­ci­pal and for­mer past stu­dent Nir­mala Mayrhoo re-traced the school’s hum­ble be­gin­nings dat­ing back to the coun­try’s colo­nial era. “This struc­ture nev­er ex­ist­ed, ini­tial­ly this space was oc­cu­pied by a long carat shed that was sole­ly used for the pur­pos­es of teach­ing hin­di and hold­ing com­mu­ni­ty meet­ings,” Mayrhoo said.

She said pri­or to its es­tab­lish­ment, chil­dren seek­ing an ed­u­ca­tion would have to walk for over an hour to an­oth­er com­mu­ni­ty.

“As the pop­u­la­tion grew, there were a num­ber of Arya Sama­jist in the com­mu­ni­ty who recog­nised he need to ed­u­cate the chil­dren and so the thought of hav­ing a school in the area was birthed. Pri­or to that, the chil­dren who want­ed to go to school had to walk bare foot from Fyz­abad to Oropouche.” Mayrhoo stressed that the school’s teach­ings and his­to­ry can be found wo­ven in­to the fab­ric of many fam­i­lies from the com­mu­ni­ty and sur­round­ing ar­eas, cit­ing her own per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ence.

“Co­in­ci­den­tal­ly, my date of ap­point­ment is No­vem­ber 1st, I start­ed in 1991. It is the on­ly job I ever ap­plied for and I stuck in it be­cause it an­swered all my call­ings. I was al­so a stu­dent and it is not on­ly my sto­ry, as a num­ber of teach­ers were ei­ther past stu­dents, their par­ents may have worked here and it is more about love than du­ty,” Mayrhoo beamed.

She ex­plained that the school has grown from its hum­ble be­gin­nings in­to a well-re­spect­ed in­sti­tu­tion known for its ded­i­ca­tion to nur­tur­ing young minds. “The school has pro­duced val­ue and it’s not in one par­tic­u­lar space but all round, it has added to the build­ing of the com­mu­ni­ty. We val­ue holis­tic de­vel­op­ment, where­by we cater for the well round­ed de­vel­op­ment of the child and you would see aca­d­e­mics is im­por­tant but we al­so en­cour­age stu­dents in their pas­sions and hob­bies.” Mayrhoo cred­it­ed the school, which is part­ly fund­ed by gov­ern­ment, as a bea­con in the com­mu­ni­ty and be­ing in­stru­men­tal in nur­tur­ing re­spect and tol­er­ance among the youth.

“Every day we have a pe­ri­od sched­uled for RI, where the teach­ers do Hin­di, mantras, med­i­ta­tion, bha­jans and cat­e­chism and on Thurs­day, since the in­cep­tion, we have week­ly ha­vans. It’s a whole school ac­tiv­i­ty and every­one en­gages in prayers to­geth­er, teach­ers, staff as well as stu­dents.”

She ex­plained that the re­li­gious prac­tices are not forced up­on stu­dents bug not­ed the school large­ly en­joys full par­tic­i­pa­tion form its over 300 stu­dent pop­u­la­tion.

Ra­jesh Jag­mo­han, a teacher 1 who has been a the school for 33 years and was al­so a past stu­dent, not­ed that there have been promi­nent fig­ures who would have helped shaped stu­dents’ minds through the years.

“The late Prime Min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day taught at the Seereeam Vedic Pri­ma­ry School, Mun­gal Patasar taught here for quite a while, Lenny Saith al­so taught at one of our Vedic schools so the stu­dents have been ex­posed to bril­liant minds.” Jag­mo­han ex­plained that when a stu­dent tran­si­tions from the school, they pos­sess the char­ac­ter­is­tics that make them mod­el cit­i­zens.

“We would pro­duce a child who is all round, law-abid­ing, re­spon­si­ble and would have ben­e­fit­ed from the many val­ues that were in­cul­cat­ed in them.”

He not­ed that lead­er­ship and mo­ti­va­tion have been among the dri­ving forces be­hind the school nav­i­gat­ing through the decades.