National Gems Higher Secondary School

National Gems Higher Secondary School, often to as just National Gems, is one of the most prominent schools in the Behala region of South Kolkata. The school has close to a thousand students from all across Southwest Kolkata. The school, along with several other schools in the area, has received considerably high rankings in Times of India's school rankings in the year of 2014. Several prominent students have studied in the school, including booming Tollywood star Tathoi Deb. The school is headed by the headmaster Michael D'Cruize and principal Michael Shane Calvert. The principal also serves as a MLA in the West Bengal Assembly.

History

National Gems was founded in 1968 by Late Ganesh Prasad Khanna, a former entrepreneur. He was a visionary with the desire to impart education to all segments of society. By 1993, the school was upgraded to class VIII and was poised at a delicate stage of obtaining affiliation from a recognized body. It was that then a Trust was formed by the name of Shaw Education Foundation at the initiation of the Late Narayan Shaw and Mr. Sudip Kumar Khanna. The school is affiliated to the Council for The INDIAN School Certificate Examinations, New Delhi, since 1995. Today, the school has its own permanent examination center from where our students appear for both the ICSE and ISC Examinations.

Academics and Extra-Curricular

The school had achieved high marks in the 2010 ISC and ICSE examinations. In the recent years, however, the results have sharply deteriorated, with many students and parents blaming the poor quality of teachers. The school, especially the headmaster, is also said to have been disseminating religious propaganda among the students.
The school has achieved feats in co-curricular activities, with clubs in singing, dancing, creative writing, quiz and athletics. There has, however, been numerous claims of nepotism in the field of extra-curricular activities, with siblings and prodigies of the principal and other alumni being given lead characters in plays and stage performances.

Claims of violating student's liberties

The school has been accused of overreaching on students' individual liberties. Students are severely reprimanded for speaking in any other language other than English, thus violating linguistic freedom. Students, including girls, are often told to change their haircut or face suspension. Many teachers in the school often humiliate students in front of their peers for not doing homework, or failing a test. The school has recently adopted a new system which deducts marks from students' reports for non-compliance to the authority of the school. The school has been often accused of trying to create a "nanny state". The school, has however argued that the heavy-handedness only helps to discipline students.