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, are works in progress.

Likewise substantial investment has been made in developing MBRS’ two academic blocks, Kautilya (primary, middle and high school) and Charles Darwin (senior secondary school) with 29 fully-wired classrooms equipped with interactive electronic Smartboards and supported by a library with 16,000 volumes and 40 journal subscriptions housed in an aggregate built-up area of 85,000 sq. ft. “Teacher training and empowerment is also given high importance in Miles Bronson Residential School, Guwahati. Our teachers are regularly signed up for workshops by CBSE trainers and iDiscoveri, and for the Manipal K-12 professional development programme, boarding school management programme run by Tim Holgate, former headmaster of Westminster School, UK and Margaret Warner’s multiple intelligence workshops in India and abroad,” says Dutta.

The benefits of the holistic schooling experience provided by MBRS to its students are reflected in the school’s excellent CBSE class XII board exam results in which it has consistently recorded 100 pass percentage. “This year two students became all-India subject toppers by scoring 100 percent and one student scored 95 percent in almost all subjects and has been awarded a five-year science scholarship by the Union government. To constantly upgrade our teachers’ skills and internationalise the curriculum, MBRS has incorporated Harvard University’s SOTEL (safety, objective, teaching, engagement and learning) program and students regularly participate in international events such as the Lead America Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to develop liberal global mindsets. To enhance students’ social skills, participation in the International Programme for Young People and International Award Programme is encouraged,” says Dutta.

Twenty-five years on with MBRS having acquired an excellent reputation in the seven sister states of the north-east and beyond, as testified by the school’s Top 20 national rank among co-ed boarding schools in the EW India School Rankings 2013, its management has completed an ambitious new blueprint to promote a full-fledged international primary-secondary school affiliated with Cambridge International Examinations (CIE), UK, and the International Baccalaureate Organisation (IBO), Geneva. “The new school scheduled to become operational in April 2019 will prepare students for CIE’s ‘O’ level exams and higher secondary students for IBO’s class XII exam. We want to build on the reputation we have earned over 25 years and give students of north-east India the chance to become competitive global citizens. Meanwhile in both our schools, we will continue our efforts to globalise the education we offer by embracing new pedagogies, technologies and opportunities while ensuring our students remain rooted in our culture and heritage,” says Dutta.

Wind beneath your wings!

Bharati Thakore (Guwahati)