Miles Bronson Residential School, Guwahati

Named after American missionary Miles Bronson who published the first Anglo-Assamese dictionary in 1867, Miles Bronson Residential School, Guwahati has come a long way from its rented premises in Jyotinagar Sited on a spacious 26-acre campus abutting the international airport in Borjhar on the outskirts of Guwahati, the CBSE-affiliated Miles Bronson Residential School (MBRS, estb. 1987) is Assam’s pioneer co-educational boarding school. Named after American missionary Dr. Miles Bronson who came to Assam in 1837 and published Asomiya Abhihan (1867), the first Anglo-Assamese dictionary, the school has come a long way since it admitted its first batch of 17 students in rented premises in Jyotinagar in 1988. In the EducationWorld India School Rankings 2013 (EW September), Miles Bronson Residential School, Guwahati is ranked second among co-ed boarding schools in Assam (pop. 31 million), #18 nationwide and among the Top 10 boarding schools (across all sub-categories) for infrastructure. The history of Miles Bronson Residential School, Guwhati goes back to 1987 when Nripen Kumar Dutta, a history postgraduate of Delhi University who also acquired a Masters in education from Gauhati University, was preparing for the UPSC (Union Public Services Commission) exam, in the course of which he met several successful alumni of top-ranked boarding schools. Well aware that Assam was under-served by way of nationally benchmarked primary-secondary boarding schools, Dutta abandoned his plan to join the IAS, and invested all his savings into starting MBRS to enable students from different parts of north-east India to get quality education. Under Dutta’s focused and committed leadership, enrollment inched up to 58 students in 1990 and the school moved to a larger campus in Beltola near Dispur where enrollment further rose to 220. In 2002, Miles Bronson Residential School, Guwahati was again translocated to its present state-of-the-art capital intensive campus which hosts fully residential 360 boys and 275 girls mentored by 206 teachers and support staff. “Our prime objective is to provide students quality education blended with latest technology and international pedagogy. My vision is to empower our teachers to develop the minds, bodies and souls of our students so that they emerge with strong personalities and are prepared for global citizenship,” says Dutta, who was awarded his Ph D by the Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth, Pune in 2010, and is currently selected for enrollment at Exeter University for a Ph D in education. To attain these ambitious institutional objectives, the Miles Bronson Residential School, Guwahati management has invested a massive sum estimated at Rs.185 crore, to create a conducive home-away-from-home environment for its 635 students. The school offers three aesthetically-designed and composite girls and two boys’ hostels with each offering en suite residential (four to a room) equipped with study facilities and dining rooms, and “world class” games and sports arenas. Among the latter are facilities for swimming, tennis, basketball, football and taekwondo. Moreover a mini golf course, a 400 metre synthetic athletics track, and a multi-purpose indoor sports auditorium with facilities for a whole range of indoor games and a seating capacity of 3,000,…