Sarala Birla Academy (SBA) was set up with Mr. Kumar Mangalam Birla’s overarching vision of “igniting minds and creating in the students a love of learning and continuous development, by making the learning process an enjoyable experience and by doing so, help develop a higher sense of self-esteem in the student and endeavour to equip the student with life skills that will place him first among his equals, when he steps out into the real world.”

The part of the vision that talks of ‘first among equals’ refers to ‘Leadership’ and it’s serious business here at SBA. Spread over 64 acres, we have more than 90 families staying on campus – apart from the 400 children. Then we have our complete ‘water-supply system’, right from pumping it out from within the crust of the Earth till it’s supplied to all the residents. We partially generate (with solar panels) electricity, too. We have a 19-bed hospital with a resident doctor and nurses. We have a Kitchen and Dining Hall and a cafeteria that caters to all the residents. We also have our own nursery, an award winning garden programme and have a water harvesting system among other such facilities. In short, we are a mini township. We have come to realise that probably the best way to train our students in leadership is to have them participate, more and more, in the functioning of this township. Over the years this has come to a stage where the students are empowered to act and take decisions that significantly impact the performance and the future of SBA.

A few examples will better illustrate what we wish to express. The students have designed their ‘sweat shirt’, the Prefect’s tie, the varsity jacket, the school watch and the T-shirt they wear on their town outings. All certificates of the school have been designed by them. All school publications are handled by them and this involves everything – editing, lay-out, font size, design, alignment of the photographs… – the printer only puts the completely designed package in the machine for printing. The school Dining Hall and Cafeteria menu – SBA has a WIDE menu – is almost entirely decided (and very responsibly so) by the Mess Committee consisting of students of all grades. The students play a large role in the finalising of the school calendar, the list of activities, discipline, developing the school website among other aspects of the functioning of the school. Over the years, the children have been involved in various exercises related to the betterment of the township – checking the chlorine content in the water of the swimming pool, checking the ageing of the machinery in the STP, testing the soil of the different parts of the campus and then suggesting which plants/trees would grow better in those parts, checking the decibel level of the Dining Hall when meals are in progress, the quality of the drinking water of the campus among others.

All Inter School events hosted by the school are meticulously planned and executed by the students. This involves the hosting of the visiting delegates (sometimes as high as 160), detailed planning of the menu for each meal for the duration of their stay, arranging and anchoring ‘break away’ sessions, arranging sight-seeing trips, cultural progammes, ensuring maintenance of decorum by all and almost all aspects associated with such exercises.

Leadership is now a way of life for the students of SBA. We have had students and teachers of other schools coming over to witness how our students manage all these aspects. One of the school mottoes is: ‘Leadership with vision, courage, understanding and humility’ and it’s taken very seriously by all of us here. The endeavour is to have the students grow up into leaders who’ll not measure success only by the hierarchical steps they climb on the corporate or the social ladder, but also by the value-addition they bring about in all around them and by the amount of Sunshine they bring about in the lives of those who’ve not been as lucky as they have been.

Also read: Sarala Birla Academy: A Very Special Boys’ Boarding School