SVN: An Exemplary School

The results of this year’s CSEC exams, in which Saraswati Vidya Niketan dominated the headlines by copping the top two places in the country and in the Caribbean, might have surprised many. While this newspaper has its doubts about the advisability of children at an average age of 16, writing twenty subjects, one has to acknowledge that it is an incredible feat for the number one student to not only sit for that number, but to actually achieve all grade 1′s.

Saraswati Vidya Niketan (SVN) – which means “Goddess of Knowledge’s abode of knowledge” – is a school founded by the Hindu Swami (monk), Aksharananda. From a recent interview with this newspaper, it is clear that he has some firm ideas on the imparting of an education to children. And from the results over the last few years, it is clear that those ideas work.

In addition to the top two performances, SVN achieved an overall pass rate (grades 1-3) of 93 percent. Now while this is an impressive figure, even more importantly their matriculation rate (five subjects passed, including English and Mathematics) is a whopping 82%. When youths want to enter university or apply to any decent entry level white collar job, this is the minimum qualification sought but in so many instances cannot be produced.

While in the announcement by the Education Ministry about the 47 students that received at least 11 Grade 1′s, 11 students from SVN qualified, that was only the tip of the iceberg: 53 out of 64 students secured passes in 11 subjects and more including English and Maths.

In the latter two subjects, which are the bane of our teaching profession, even though the national pass rate figures improved, in neither did it touch 50%. On the other hand, SVN’s English pass rate was 86% and Maths 93%.

Such results demand an explanation, especially against the most important background fact that, unlike Queens College and Bishops High School, SVN’s pool of students are overwhelmingly drawn from the “ordinary” and “below average” performers at the NGSA. What this means is that while, for instance, Queens produced 19 of the 47 top performers to SVN’s 11, the former receives the TOP 1 percent from the NGSA. Bishops, which collects the next 1%, was able to secure only 2 of the top performers.

While as SVN’s performance improved in the last decade (it was founded in 2002) and it has been able to attract some of the better performers at NGSA (the top student Victoria Najab transferred out of Queens) it has been able to make the “ordinary” student perform extraordinarily at CSEC.

In June, writing on another matter concerning Swami Aksharananda, Bonita Harris, an individual steeped in the search for educational excellence, wrote, “I have followed the development of his school at Cornelia Ida, Saraswati Vidya Niketan, and strongly recommend that head teachers and the  Education Ministry pay close attention to what is responsible for its academic success. It is the closest thing we have as a model school in Guyana.” We write from that perspective.

The major difference at SVN and the general public Secondary Schools, is the discipline that is imparted to the children in their approach, not only to their studies, but to their approach to life.

It is very difficult to disjuncture behaviour from performance, but somehow the Education Ministry seems unable to convey this idea to the heads of their schools. While there are some who scoff at the insistence of discipline, SVN’s imparts it with love: “tough love” in action.

The second innovation is to pay the teachers better but have them give extra “lessons” right on the school premises but outside of the mandated “school hours”. The present Education Minister has bemoaned the “lessons syndrome”, but SVN has found a way to make it work positively.

We hope that “a hint to Beneba mek Quashie tek notice.”