SRINAGAR, Aug 30: Kashmir’s first educational institution dedicated solely for girls, Mallinson School is all set for its centenary celebrations beginning Friday.
From just 12 girls in 1912, the school today has a roll of nearly 3,000 students, said Parvaiz Samuel Koul, principal of the school adding, “Our efforts are towards educating the girl c hild and her development.”
“The centenary celebrations are a testimony to the efforts of the school in educating the girl child in the city initially and later in other parts of the valley,” Koul said.
He said the school was adversely affected by the conflict when in the early nineties many Kashmiri Pandits left the valley fearing persecution by armed rebels.
“At the time of eruption of militancy in Kashmir as many as 56 teachers left the school. Most of these teachers were belonging to the community or were from outside valley. The five to six years after 1990 were difficult but we returned to our normal activities in 1996,” he said.
During the 2010 summer uprising when people took to streets chanting anti-India slogans, a branch of the school in northern Kashmir’s Tangmarg area was gutted by unknown persons. However, Koul said, the incident had nothing to do with the school being run by christians.
“We had 50 new students after the school resumed in 2010 which is evidence that the incident had nothing to do with the school as such. There were extraneous factors involved which we would not like to dwell upon,” he said.
On the general complaint that the missionary schools like Mallinson and Biscoe had been commercialised, Koul said every sector has been commercialised.
“One has to look at the kind of infrastructure we have built over the years. We have opened two new schools at Humhama and Tangmarg. All this needs money,” he said. “We were missionary schools, but now it has changed. People should not call us missionaries”.
