experimental school vadodara

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Know Your City: University Experimental School, where Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was said to have studied

More than 100 years old, the university experimental school in gujarat’s vadodara was once popular with the children of nobles and officials from the court of maharaja sayajirao gaekwad iii..

Located inside the Faculty of Arts premises at Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, the 107-year-old University Experimental School, as the name suggests, is a unique school where the teachers were once themselves students. Housed in an E-shaped building – a double-storeyed structure in the Indo-Saracenic style, with three domes and an arched verandah infusing Islamic architecture, it was formerly Baroda High School and is a standing symbol of Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III’s endeavours to promote education in the erstwhile Baroda state.

A plaque near the entry states ‘High School, Erected 1916 AD at a cost of Rs 3,01,925’. The architect is Sir W Emerson and Chief Engineer A H Coyle. Before the building was erected, Baroda High School ran out of a structure in the walled city, where India’s first Deputy Prime Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel had briefly enrolled between 1887 and 1892 as a student, Jeetendrasinh Gaekwad, great-grandnephew of Sayajirao III, tells The Indian Express . Although there is no official documentation of Sardar Patel’s years in the school, it remains a popular oral anecdote in Vadodara – in fact, a statue of Sardar Patel in a glass case adorns the school campus even today.

Hemang Modi, assistant teacher at the Experimental School, who was the in-charge principal of the Gujarati-medium wing of the Experimental School until last year, told The Indian Express, “We have all heard the stories of Sardar Patel being a student of the school… However, we do not have any old student records to confirm the exact dates when he joined and left. The information has been passed down through generations.”

As the school shifted to the current building in 1916, it became more popular with the children of nobles and officials of the Maharaja’s court. Later, in 1951, M S University established it as University Experimental School (Gujarati) under the Faculty of Education and Psychology to provide quality education at the school level and act as an institution for experiment and practice in teaching. It was only in 2005 that the school launched its non-granted English-medium section from Class 1 to 12 in the Commerce stream.

Vadodara historian Chandrashekhar Patil says, “The Baroda High School, as it was known before it was merged into the M S University in 1951, was the most popular school of its times. Maharaja Sayajirao III was known for laying emphasis on education and so as he had already constructed the Baroda College in 1881, the High School (in 1916) came up in the vicinity where children of the Diwan, Sardars, officers, nobles as well as the teachers who were appointed in Baroda state went to study.”

Patil states that although the princes of the enthroned Maharaja studied in an exclusive school inside the present-day Maharaja Fateh Singh Museum, the children of the other princes and extended royal family attended the high school. Patil adds, “The school imparted formal subject-wise education in those days and almost all affluent families thronged to have their children admitted to the school every year… Even foreign teachers and professors were known to be attached to the school to teach the children.”

Later, as the Experimental School, the school continued to remain popular among residents of Vadodara. Former head of the department of dance and dean of the faculty of performing arts, who has been a board member of the University Experimental School, Dr Parul Shah told this newspaper that the school “encouraged thinking and questioning” during the 1950s and 60s. Shah, an alumnus of the school, said, “The school was meant to create excellent teachers… When we were students at the school, our teachers used to be students of B.Ed. and M.Ed. There were about 30-35 students in each class and there were only 11 classrooms for Classes 1 to 11. In those days of convent girls’ schools, Experimental School was only one of the two co-education schools. All activities were integrated into the curriculum including music, dance, arts and crafts.”

Shah recalls that the students also had an in-school radio broadcasting station called UEBS every week and even administered the canteen right from sales to accounts. “We would also have mock Parliaments and speeches of Prime Ministers to learn lessons of democracy. We were encouraged to speak and question. Some of the famous alumni included top industrialists, who have later been associated with Vadodara, as well as many political leaders of the 90s,” Shah said.

Although the university forged a path for innovation in teaching, the school, however, has lost some of its popularity over the years due to issues of teacher recruitment and “lack of upgrade” in infrastructure.

It was in 2022 that the school inaugurated its first computer lab of 23 terminals donated by its alumni of the 1972 and 1976 batches. Patil adds, “The school failed to stay in the competition as more private schools with better infrastructure facilities came up… People are particular about the standard of education that their children are receiving as much as about the infrastructure of the school.”

Shah says, “Many other schools have come up over the years that offer more facilities such as air-conditioned classrooms… Being a part of MS University, the school had the freedom (to appoint teachers) but now it is a granted school and there are restrictions and so there are some issues.”

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Experimental school, Vadodara

Experimental school, Vadodara | Institutional

The site for the proposed school is in the heart of the city of Vadodara, abutting the railway station, the bus station and within the Maharaja Sayajirao University Campus. The school is to be built on the open area beside the present University Experimental school as an extension of current facilities. This area is presently utilized by the students of the Experimental school as a playground.

Client : Maharaja Sayajiroa trust Location : Vadodara Built up area : 35,000 sq. ft. Project status : Proposed