Our Own English High School, Sharjah (UAE)

The third primary-secondary school promoted by the Dubai-based GEMS which manages 65 schools in eight countries, Our Own English High School, Sharjah (UAE) recently celebrated its silver jubilee with pomp and pageantry On December 5, 2007, Our Own English High School (OOEHS) — one of the first primary-cum-secondary schools for children of Indian migrants in Sharjah — celebrated its silver jubilee with pomp and pageantry. The school’s Silver Jubilee Grand Finale was the culmination of a series of events, concerts and contests which included a biennial exhibition, an inter-school extempore speech competition, an inter-school essay contest, several cultural shows and release of a documentary film (Lead Kindly Light) on the history of this institution — the first Varkey Group school in Sharjah (pop.750,000). Our Own English High School, Sharjah (estb. 1982) was the third primary-secondary promoted by the Dubai-based Varkey Group of schools (rechristened Global Education Management Systems (GEMS) in 1998), which during the past four decades has grown into Asia’s largest transnational private school chain, managing 65 schools in eight countries including the United Kingdom, Germany, UAE, Qatar, Libya, Kuwait, Jordan and India with an aggregate enrollment of 70,000 students. Our Own English High School and Varkey Group/GEMS are the myriad flowers of a seed planted by banker turned educationist K.S. Varkey and his wife Mariamma, promoters of primary schools mainly for children of the Indian diaspora who flocked to the United Arab Emirates in the wake of the explosion of crude oil prices between 1973-79, to build the infrastructure of the seven UAE sheikhdoms. In September 1968, the Varkeys promoted the first OOEHS, Dubai with an initial complement of 21 students and four teachers. Subsequently several other primary-cum-secondaries were promoted in Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi, Fujairah, and Al Ain under the visionary leadership of Sunny Varkey, incumbent chairman of GEMS. Spread across seven acres Our Own English High School, Sharjah (UAE) is a kindergarten-Plus Two day school with an aggregate enrollment of 11,000 students instructed by 450 teachers, and prepares students for the school leaving class X and XII examinations of the Delhi-based Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), which has over 9,000 primary-cum-secondaries across India and other parts of the world affiliated with it. In 2007, of the 213 Our Own English High School, Sharjah (UAE) students who wrote CBSE’s class X examination, 93.4 percent passed in the first division. Students who wrote the class XII exam (2007) went one better. Of the 139 who wrote the examination, 98.5 percent passed in the first division. “During the past quarter century, OOEHS, Sharjah has satisfactorily achieved its objective of providing quality education at affordable fees to the growing expat, particularly Indian, community in Sharjah and the neighbouring emirates. While 95 percent of our 11,000 student body is of Indian origin, we also have students from other Asian countries such as Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan on our rolls. Our academic results are excellent and OOEHS, Sharjah students are regularly admitted into prestigious institutions of higher education including the IITs…