Starting from humble beginnings in a building with just five pupils, City Montessori school in India is now the world’s largest – with a staggering 47,000 attendees.
It is so large a packed Anfield football stadium could comfortably attend – with room to spare.
The school, known as CMS, employs an army of 3,800 staff, including teachers, support staff, cleaners, rickshaw drivers, and even electricians, carpenters and gardeners.
Record breaking: City Montessori School, in India is the world’s largest with 47,0000 students, but they still have room to congregate outside for morning prayers
It has over 1,000 classrooms, 3,700 computers and goes through thousands of pounds worth of stationary and books each year.
Based in the city of Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh, CMS was set up by Dr Jagdish Gandhi, 75, and his wife Bharti in 1959 with just five pupils.
Today, it sprawls over 20 campuses across the city – and is still growing despite more than doubling in size during the last 14-years alone.
Dr. Gandhi said: ‘I founded this school with great difficulty back in 1959. I was beating the drum all around the part of Lucknow that I live for 15 days but no one came.
‘It was only when me and my wife persuaded a woman to send the children from her extended family that it all started, and even then it was only five children.
‘We started from very humble beginnings and back then we only had a loan of 300 rupees (£3 at current rates) to fund our school.
‘But from word of mouth it slowly spread and children started coming. Year after year the numbers swelled.
‘I never thought that one day we would have the world’s biggest school. There are over 20 campuses around Lucknow and we are bigger than the population of many towns.’
The school’s rapid growth saw it officially recognised by the 2013 Guinness Book of Records as the world’s largest, taking the crown from Rizal High School in Manila, Philippines, which had just 19,738 pupils.
Dr. Gandhi added: ‘It was a proud moment for us when we were included in the record book.
‘But since then we have kept growing – in the last 14 years the number has more than doubled from 22,000
‘I believe that we should not deny children the right to education.’
Workforce: CMS employs an army of 3,800 staff, including teachers, support staff, cleaners, rickshaw drivers, and even electricians, carpenters and gardeners
CMS’s sheer size means it has never convened for an assembly – because there is no venue large enough to house them all.
Geeta Kingdon, the current head teacher and daughter of founder Dr. Gandhi, said: ‘The whole of Lucknow would be jammed if we tried because one bus holds 50 children, so we’d need 1,000 buses to bring them together.’
The school receives no government funding, instead charging a relatively modest 1,000 rupees (£12) a month in fees for younger pupils, rising to £2,500 (£30) a month for seniors.
Some of its past alumni have gone on to work for the United Nations, studied at Harvard and worked for Goldman Sachs.
Current pupil Kanika Gupta, 14, of Class 9J, said: ‘I could not imagine going to a smaller school.
‘Being at the world’s largest school means you get to make lots of friends and meet many different people, with different interests and tastes.
‘But there are challenges too – standing out ahead of your peers is difficult. You have to work twice as hard to make sure you get noticed, otherwise you are just another student among thousands of others.’
Fellow pupil Harsh Rai, also 14, added: ‘It is definitely competitive, particularly to get into the school teams.
‘But if you make one then you can certainly feel proud of that because you are the creme of the crop.’
He added: ‘We are taught not only traditional subjects but good values. Dr. Gandhi is an inspiration for us all to be good citizens.’
Class sizes range from 25 pupils all the way up to 50 in a single room. Each pupil is also assigned a teacher who is responsible for his or her pastoral care, something staff believe means no one gets neglected or forgotten.
Miss Archana Mishra, who has taught English at CMS for the past six years, said: ‘There is a good rapport between the students and the teachers. It is very easy to teach them and there are not many problems with them.
‘We try and keep classes below 50 pupils, and generally they are usually around 40 to 45 pupils on average. We find this is a manageable number and everyone gets enough attention.’
And with so many pupils, she admits it can be difficult avoiding students outside of school hours.
Miss Mishra added: ‘There are so many of them, particularly who live around my area, it can be difficult not to bump into them at the mall or in the street.
‘Usually if we see each other, we both tend to ignore one another. We see enough of each other at school.’
Alongside traditional subjects such as Geography, Maths and English, students also learn about world peace. CMS is also the only school in the world to be awarded a UNESCO prize for its efforts in this field.
Dr. Gandhi said: ‘The education that we provide here at CMS is totally different from that of any other school in the world.
‘We are not just teaching subjects but also the love of the world. The people of Lucknow have shown that they like our philosophy – that’s why there is no space left and admissions are so sought after.
source:::::mailonline.com UK
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