Sunbeam School, Lahartara (Varanasi)

Ranked Varanasi’s No. 1 school for the second year in succession in the EW India School Rankings 2012, Sunbeam School, Lahartara  is set to celebrate its tenth anniversary this year Sited in the sacred city of Varanasi (pop.3 million), the CBSE-affiliated K-12 Sunbeam School, Lahartara (estb. 2002) has speedily acquired an excellent reputation in the Hindi heartland state of Uttar Pradesh, for offering exemplary academic and extra-curricular education supported by modern infrastructure and sports facilities. In the recently released EducationWorld India School Rankings 2012 conducted by Delhi-based market research agency C fore, Sunbeam School, Lahartara is ranked Varanasi’s No. 1 school for the second year in succession, and fifth best in Uttar Pradesh (pop. 200 million). Next month (November), the co-educational Sunbeam will commence year-long celebrations to commemorate its tenth anniversary. “Sunbeam Lahartara was promoted to offer contemporary, activity-based education to empower students to reach their full potential. I believe over the past decade, we have successfully delivered high-quality new ICT (information communications technology)-driven primary and secondary education with strong focus on personality development and multiple intelligences. We are committed to producing future-ready, thinking, caring and confident youth equipped with a sound foundational education which will enable them to assume leadership positions anywhere in the world,” says Sudha Singh, a zoology postgrad of Punjabi University, Patiala, who served with Sunbeam (Annapurna) before signing up with Sunbeam Lahartara in 2002, and was appointed principal in 2005. Significantly for a ten-year-old institution, Sunbeam School, Lahartara (Varanasi), which boasts a student enrolment of 2,300 (including 120 boarders) instructed by 120 faculty, has an enviable reputation for producing outstanding board exam results. In 2012, of the 228 students who wrote the class XII CBSE board exam, 224 were ranked in the first division. Moreover 12 students also qualified for admission into the country’s premier IITs.  Promoted in 2002 by former bureaucrat Deepak Madhok, Sunbeam Lahartara has emerged as the show-piece school of the Sunbeam Group which comprises 17 educational institutions including three K-12 schools, four hostels, a women’s college, and school for the underprivileged with an aggregate enrolment of 20,000 students. The seeds of the Sunbeam Group were sown way back in 1972 in Bhagwanpur (Varanasi) by Dr. Amrit Lal ‘lshrat’ Madhok and Deesh ‘Ishrat’ Madhok who voluntarily undertook a mission to promote private, independent institutions to deliver high quality English-medium education to the vast majority of children deprived of it in India’s largest Hindi-speaking state. In 1990, their son Deepak, an alumnus of Benaras Hindu and Allahabad universities, resigned from a senior position in the state civil services commission to carry his parents’ mission forward, and over the past two decades has transformed the Sunbeam Group into the fastest growing education conglomerate in Uttar Pradesh. The distinguishing characteristic of all Sunbeam institutions is their excellent infrastructure and co-curricular and sports facilities. A stone’s throw from the Varanasi railway station, Sunbeam Lahartara is similarly well-equipped. Sited on a two-acre plot in a four-storied building with a built-up area of 125,000 sq.ft, it offers 52 spacious classrooms, state-of-the-art computer,…