St. Xavier's School, Jawalakhel

St. Xavier's School was established in 1951 in Kathmandu, Nepal as a result of efforts by the Jesuit Missionary Marshall D. Moran. Fresh from the newly acquired democratic political system after a century long system of familial rule by the "Ranas", Nepal was at this time in its history beginning to open up to the world and the incumbent king of Nepal, Tribhuwan Bir Bikram Shah, is believed to have personally invited Moran, who at that time ran his affairs in Patna, India, to extend the Jesuit network to Nepal by establishing there a missionary school. Moran complied and within less than a year of the invitation, St. Xavier's School was set up in Godawari in the outskirts of Kathmandu.

St. Xavier's School has throughout its venerable history in Nepal been considered among the most prestigious schools in the country. Being established in the early 1950s, which it may be of importance to add was still a time of utter backwardness and isolatedness for Nepal, and run mostly by American Jesuits, the school quite obviously represented a class and distinction much different and in many ways superior to the system of education prevalent in Nepal until rather recently. Among the greatest achievements of the school throughout the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and stretching right up till the end of the 1980s was the remarkable quality of instruction offered to students in the English language. Instruction in the English language was mostly uncommon and almost universally mediocre in schools in Nepal before as late as the 1980s. St. Xavier's School had the mentionable honor of being one of the extremely few schools in the entire country capable of producing students educated under a system that almost entirely employed English as used by native speakers as the language of instruction.

An all boys school for all of its history until 2000, St. Xavier's School started enrolling girls beginning in the academic session of 2000/01, a major impetus for the change being the occassion of a golden jubilee for the school as the year 2000 marked the 50th year of its operation in Nepal. The first batch of girls ever to be admitted at St. Xavier's School officially graduated in the academic session of 2009/10. It is currently the policy of the school to admit girls and boys in approximately equal numbers, a departure from the initial policy that allowed girls to comprise only about a third of the population of incoming students.

Within Kathmandu, St. Xavier's School has two branches, one of which is located in the outskirts of the city at Godawari and the other at Jawalakhel, within the city, the latter chapter of the school having been established 3 years after the initial founding of the school at Godawari in 1951. Until 1999, the two branches effectively operated as a single unit with students at the branch at Godawari usually transferring to Jawalakhel after grade six; the Godawari branch offered classes only upto grade six. The Jawalakhel branch on the other hand ran classes from grade one all the way upto grade ten. Starting in 1999, however, the Godawari branch established facilities to accomodate classes upto grade 10 with the result that students were no longer obliged to transfer to Jawalakhel at the beginning of middle school. A further change that was effected around this time was concerned with the population that each branch decided to draw incoming students from. It was determined that the branch at Godawari would serve primarily as a "Local School", admitting new students almost exclusively from Godawari and a few surrounding areas. The branch in Jawalakhel, by constrast, was designated the task of drawing new students from the much larger national population.

The school follows the national standard School Leaving Certificate (S.L.C.) curriculum for grade 10. The performance in the S.L.C. examniations by the students of St. Xavier's School has over the years been exceptional: failures in any given year are rare and well over half of all candidates score within the highest division (above an aggregate score of 60%).

See also

• St. Xavier's College, Maitighar
• St. Xavier's School, Godavari

External links

• St. Xavier's School Jawalakhel
• St. Xavier's School Godavari
• St. Xavier's Campus Maitighar

References