South Point is a higher-secondary

co-educational Mixed-sex education, also known as mixed-gender education, co-education, or coeducation (abbreviated to co-ed or coed), is a system of education where males and females are educated together. Whereas single-sex education was more common up to t ...

private school Private or privates may refer to: Music * " In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation'' * Private (band), a Denmark-based band * "Private" (Ryōko Hirosue song), from the 1999 album ''Private'', written and also recorde ...

located in Kolkata, West Bengal and affiliated to

Central Board of Secondary Education The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) is a national level board of education in India for public and private schools, controlled and managed by the Government of India. Established in 1929 by a resolution of the government, the Board ...

, consisting of three organisations – South Point School (Nursery to Class V), South Point High School (Classes VI to XII) and South Point Education Society (administrative authority). The school operates in two shifts for all classes – Morning and Afternoon (day). The school opened in 1954, and was the first co-educational school in

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

. Higher Secondary (10+2) education was introduced in 1960. Initially operation as a single unit, the school split into two buildings with the high school shifting to Ballygunge Place in 1980. It is claimed to be the only school in

to have a Nobel Laureate as an alumnus. The school was recorded as the world's largest school (in terms of student numbers) between 1984 and 1992 by the Guinness Book of Records.

History

South Point School is an English-medium and co-educational school which was founded on 1 April 1954 at 16 Mandeville Gardens,

. Administration in the initial years was supervised by the founder Shri Satikanta Guha, his wife and co-founder Smt. Pritylata Guha. On 1 April 1960, it was upgraded to the Higher Secondary level. To overcome space constraints, the High School wing was shifted to a new building at 82/7A Ballygunge Place on 8 April 1970. Since the acquisition of the institution by the M.P. Birla Group, the school is now run by the South Point Education Society. South Point School, the "junior" school, has Nursery I, Nursery II, Transition and Classes from I to V. Students then attend classes at South Point High School from Class VI onwards. From Classes VI to X, students study under the

curriculum. A majority of Pointers return to the school for the plus-two years, Classes XI and XII, under the

, under the Science, Commerce or Humanities streams, with several subject options available in each stream. Previously, South Point High School had been affiliated to both the

West Bengal Board of Secondary Education The West Bengal Board of Secondary Education is the West Bengal state government administered autonomous examining authority for the Standard 10 examination (or secondary school level examination) of West Bengal, India. It has come into force ...

(and the

West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education The West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education (WBCHSE) came into existence in 1975. It is an autonomous examining authority, which is responsible for conducting examinations for standard XII for both government and private schools aff ...

) and the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE). The West Bengal board however has been discontinued due to lack of demand, and now, the pupils appear for their Board examinations under CBSE only.

Safety standards and certification

The South Point Education Society received the OHSAS 18001:2007 Occupational Health and Safety Management Certification from the British Standards Institution (BSI) in respect of South Point School, Mandeville Gardens, and South Point High School, Ballygunge Place on 2 August 2017. The OHSAS certification has been upgraded to ISO 45001:2018 standard. The school has an integrated fire-fighting system, CCTV surveillance throughout the two campuses (barring Staff Rooms and toilets), GPS tracking facility on South Point School buses and other Occupational Health and Safety measures which are vital in maintaining the ageing school-buildings.

The Priyamvada Birla Campus

In order to address space constraints and enhance infrastructure, South Point School and South Point High School will move to a new and much larger campus named the Priyamvada Birla Campus of South Point named after Late Smt. Priyamvada Birla, philanthropist and wife of M.P. Birla Group founder Late Shri Madhav Prasad Birla. The campus is currently under construction. The new school will be located off the

Eastern Metropolitan Bypass The Eastern Metropolitan Bypass (known simply as both ''E.M. Bypass'' and ''EM Bypass'') is a (Including Kamalgazi to Baruipur extension) major road on the east side of Kolkata. It connects Ultadanga (North Kolkata) to Baruipur Puratan Baz ...

(

Biswa Bangla Sarani Biswa Bangla Sarani is a 33 km long road in Kolkata Metropolitan Area, India. It starts from Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport and ends at Garia Kamalgazi. The road passes through Kaikhali, Haldiram ( Teghoria), New Town, Sal ...

) at Mukundapur,

, near the Satyajit Ray Film Institute and the Peerless Hospital. The junior and senior wings of the school will operate from a single campus once the school relocates here. The new campus might become functional in 2021-2022 (uncertain due to

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

). With a total area of 6.65 acres and more than 7,61,000 square feet of built-up area, the school will be one of the biggest schools (in terms of area) in the city.

Emblem and objective

The School Emblem, showing a bird (dove or paloma) in flight, symbolizes "''man's everlasting quest for knowledge and the desire to soar above the mundane.''" The motto of the School is 'Courage to Know'.

School houses

South Point pupils are assigned to one of six Houses, named after famous personalities from

: *

Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Tagore (; bn, রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He resh ...

House - Red * Derozio House - Yellow * Ashutosh Mukherjee House - White *

Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar CIE ( bn, ঈশ্বর চন্দ্র বিদ্যাসাগর; 26 September 1820 – 29 July 1891), born Ishwar Chandra Bandyopadhyay, was an Indian educator and social reformer of the nineteenth century ...

House - Green * David Hare House - Orange *

Sister Nivedita Sister Nivedita ( born Margaret Elizabeth Noble; 28 October 1867 – 13 October 1911) was an Irish teacher, author, social activist, school founder and disciple of Swami Vivekananda. She spent her childhood and early youth in Ireland. She wa ...

House - Blue

Notable alumni

* Saurabh Bagchi, Professor of Computer Science,

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and mone ...

, ACM, IFIP, IEEE Distinguished Scientist, Humboldt Fellow *

Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee (; born 21 February 1961) is an Indian-American economist who is currently the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Banerjee shared the 2019 Nobel Memorial Priz ...

, Professor of Economics,

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

, Nobel Laureate in Economics *

Ritabrata Banerjee Ritabrata Banerjee (born 15 November 1978) is an Indian politician. He is currently serving as the State President of All India Trinamool Trade Union Congress West Bengal . He was elected a Rajya Sabha member from West Bengal in February 2014. ...

, politician, member of

Rajya Sabha The Rajya Sabha, constitutionally the Council of States, is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of India. , it has a maximum membership of 245, of which 233 are elected by the legislatures of the states and union territories using si ...

, India *

Tanmoy Bose Tanmoy Bose ( bn, তন্ময় বোস; born 23 August 1963), whose name is often preceded by the title Pandit (Master), is an India percussionist and tabla player, musical producer, film actor and composer. He has collaborated with Pa ...

percussionist A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...

and tabla player * Supriya Chaudhuri, scholar of English literature *

Aroup Chatterjee Aroup Chatterjee (born 23 June 1958) is a British Indian author and physician. He was born in Calcutta, and moved to the United Kingdom in 1985. He is the author of the book ''Mother Teresa: The Untold Story'' (originally published as ''Mother T ...

, doctor, author and critic * Sumit Ranjan Das, High energy physicist and Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar laureate *

Saswata Chatterjee Saswata Chatterjee (born 19 December 1970) is an Indian actor of television and films based in Kolkata. Born to actor Subhendu Chatterjee, Saswata Chatterjee began his career with a Hindi serial directed by Saibal Mitra, based on Samaresh Majum ...

, critically acclaimed actor *

Swarup Dutta Swarup Dutta (22 June 1941 – 24 July 2019) was a Bengali actor. His son Saron Dutta is a director in Bengali film industry. Early life Dutta was born in famous Dutta family of Hatkhola, Kolkata in 1941. In 1958 he passed Matriculation from th ...

, actor * Abhik Ghosh, chemist, professor, and winner of the Hans Fischer Career Award (2022) for lifetime contributions *

Rituparno Ghosh Rituparno Ghosh (31 August 1963 – 30 May 2013) was an Indian film director, actor, writer and lyricist. After pursuing a degree in economics, he started his career as a creative artist at an advertising agency. He received recognition for his ...

National Film Award The National Film Awards is the most prominent film award ceremony in India. Established in 1954, it has been administered, along with the International Film Festival of India and the Indian Panorama, by the Indian government's Directora ...

-winning filmmaker * Shamik Ghosh, Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar (2017; Government of India) winning Bengali Author *

Prosenjit Chatterjee Prosenjit Chatterjee (born 30 September 1962) is an Indian actor and producer. He is widely regarded as one of the leading actors in modern Bengali cinema. He predominantly works in Bengali cinema . He is the son of veteran Bollywood actor Bis ...

, National Film Award-winning Actor and Banga Vibhushan (Government of West Bengal) Awardee *

Pratim D. Gupta Pratim D. Gupta is an Indian journalist, film critic, screenwriter and film director. He reviewed films for ''The Telegraph'' newspaper and later for online platform Film Companion. His first film as writer-director is '' Paanch Adhyay'', starri ...

, film critic, filmmaker * Bauddhayan Mukherji, filmmaker * Srijit Mukherji, National Film Award-winning filmmaker and screenwriter * Bedabrata Pain, National Film Award-winning filmmaker, scientist and inventor *

Sandip Ray Sandip Ray (born 8 September 1953) is an Indian film director and music director who mainly works in Bengali cinema. He is the only child of the famous Bengali director Satyajit Ray and Bijoya Ray. Life and education Sandip Ray was born in C ...

, noted filmmaker (son of Satyajit Ray) *

Amitava Raychaudhuri Amitava Raychaudhuri is an Indian theoretical particle physicist. He is Professor Emeritus at the Physics Department of the Science College, University of Calcutta where he earlier held the Sir Tarak Nath Palit Chair Professorship. He is the ...

, Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar laureate and Professor Emeritus, Department of Physics,

University of Calcutta The University of Calcutta (informally known as Calcutta University; CU) is a public collegiate state university in India, located in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. Considered one of best state research university all over India every year, ...

* Anuradha Roy, an acclaimed writer whose book ‘Sleeping on Jupiter’ was longlisted for The Man Booker Prize, 2015 * Sucharit Sarkar, mathematician * Subrata Sen, filmmaker *

Riddhi Sen Riddhi Sen is an Indian film actor who predominantly works in Bengali films. He is a regular actor of the theatre group Swapnasandhani and is an alumnus of South Point school, Kolkata. In 2010, he received a special talent award from his schoo ...

, National Film Award-winning actor * Abhijit Mukherjee (Earth Scientist), scientist and Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar (Prize) laureate

References

{{Kolkata topics Primary schools in West Bengal High schools and secondary schools in West Bengal Schools in Kolkata Educational institutions established in 1954 1954 establishments in West Bengal