Sanawar: Books became the most prized possession during the prestigious ‘Annual Prize Giving’ ceremony held at The Lawrence School, Sanawar today in which over 300 books along with a certificate each were awarded to over hundred students to celebrate their outstanding achievements in the academic year 2023. The Chief Guest of the ceremony was Sanjay Kumar, IAS, Secretary, Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Education, Government of India, did the honours and gave away the awards to the young achievers.
Renowned as one of the oldest co-educational residential schools in the world for facilitating overall development of children under its care, the School awarded more than hundred students including sixty girls for achieving excellence in over sixty curricular and co-curricular disciplines. The ceremony commenced with the felicitation of the Chief Guest followed by ‘Saraswati Vandana’ and the cultural performances by the talented young students of the School.
The highlight of the event was the distribution of prizes to the meritorious students. The recipients, selected for their exceptional achievements in various domains, were applauded for their hard work, dedication, and perseverance. Celebrating the brilliant performance by its students in the recently announced CBSE Board Results, fifteen students received handsome cash awards for scoring highest marks in as many subjects. For consistently brilliant performance in academics over the years, nine students received Scholar’s Tie for the academic year 2023.
Going beyond the classrooms, imparting value based and experiential education, over fifty students were felicitated with special prizes for their proficiency in more than thirty co-curricular areas including Social Work, Multimedia, Indian Music, Indian Dance, Robotics, Band, Fashion Design, Photography, Dramatics, Debating, Artificial Intelligence and many more. While Durant Prize for English Literature went to Veer Devgan from Delhi, Khai Muanding from Manipur received the Yog Raj Palta Memorial Art Trophy for his accomplishments in Fine-Art.
The Cariappa Shield for the Best Boarding House went to Vindhya house. In addition to felicitating students, the Chief Guest also handed over the trophy of ‘School of the Year’, awarded by the Education World for the year 2023-24 to the Senior Management of the School. Mr. Sanjay applauded the holistic education given at Sanawar and congratulated The Lawrence School, Sanawar for being ranked No. 1 in Academic Excellence for the Year 2023-24 in Himachal Pradesh in the CBSE category in the North India School Merit Awards presented by India Today.
He further commended the students for their exemplary performance in academics as well as co-curricular activities. “Your School shapes you and makes you the person you become in life. Therefore cherish your residential school life and the friends you make here. This will help you realize the value of human touch in order to lead a happy life. Your AI driven generation must realize that technology is here to serve the mankind and not the other way round”, Said Sanjay Kumar, the Chairman of the Board of Governors of The Lawrence School, Sanawar. His address was met with great enthusiasm and served as a source of motivation for the students.
The Headmaster of the school, Mr. Himmat Singh Dhillon, in his concluding address said that Sanawar is committed to taking forward the pedagogical goals of the National Education Policy (2020) and the National Curriculum Framework in letter and spirit and is also actively engaged in building capacity of many other schools in the State for the same. Underlining the natural beauty of the School Campus and the myriad of opportunities available within the 139 acres campus, he encouraged the students to adopt ‘Campus as Curriculum’ as the new mantra of experiential learning. Proposing a vote of thanks, he expressed gratitude to Mr. Kumar and the members of the Board of Governors of the School for their benign presence.
