NEW DELHI: Over a year ago when a student at Rajkiya Pratibha Vikas Vidyalaya (RPVV) in Lajpat Nagar, complained to her teacher about struggling to study at night as her family lived in one room, the teacher offered to help her with a study lamp, tells Poonam Anand, proud principal of the Delhi government school that featured in the list of top 10 schools in the country by an online education portal.
Such initiatives taken by the school and its teachers have helped in making it the fifth-best in the country, said Anand, who feels that children at the institution were “as capable as those coming from the privileged classes” in the city “but lacked opportunities”.
“That’s what we do here. We provide them with quality education and offer them all possible help. Our students share a connection with their teachers,” she said.
“The perception that government schools are not good enough is wrong. We have qualified teachers that take care of the students. Their emotional needs are paid heed to, in order to help them perform better. Every child get equal attention in special meetings,” she said.
Anand said that all complaints made by students, however big or small, were entertained by the faculty.
“Our students used to get exhausted by 1 pm so we started serving them gur chana to keep their energy levels up. The students come from far-off areas and cannot afford to travel in the Metro, so our teachers help them out. We also try to get them scholarships to help them get into colleges,” she said.
RPVV Sector 10 in Dwarka was ranked the best in India in the government day school category for a second consecutive year, while RPVV Rohini stood at rank 7 in the India School Ranking 2019 released by Education World (EW), a portal for educators, teachers and parents
Rajpal Singh, principal of RPVV, Dwarka Sector 10, said the perception around private schools was “relative”.
“Not all private schools are good. We at RPVV are improving and not just in terms of infrastructure. We have a highly motivated staff. Students in distress come to me to discuss their problems personally. I have made sure that there is no fear or formality in accessing help from the staff,” he said.
The school organises a picnic every year to ensure that the students are provided with all kinds of exposure. “We sent eight kids to Moscow for an olympiad...who came back with two medals,” he said, adding that intellectual infrastructure of an institution was more important than its physical infrastructure.
Vipin Kumar, principal of RPVV Rohini, reiterated the same.
“Our teachers work very hard in order to pay attention to every single child. We have had 22 kids get through the JEE Mains exam from a class of about 35 children,” he said with pride.