An educationist to reckon with

Updated on: Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Kolkata: “It has been a very satisfying journey for me,” smiles Usha Mehta, the founder principal of BD Memorial Institute, a school that can now boast of nine branches in the city.

Usha Mehta with her students outside BD Memorial Institute
“I started the school way back in the Sixties in a threeroom flat with a couple of students, one teacher and a helper. If anyone was absent, I had to do their share of work also. That experience taught me everything, from construction of buildings to being an ayah,” Mehta recalls.

The school was set up in Bansdroni during the Naxalite movement. “ Everyone told me that without Anglo-Indian English teachers, my children would not learn good English. But I took this as a challenge and appointed Bengali teachers. I even trained some teachers myself.” Mehta also offered jobs to women who were widowed or divorced.

Mehta’s faith in her staff kept her going as she served 43 long years as a principal and then went on to become the director of BD Memorial School.

Mehta is an MA and also holds diplomas in teaching English, in child education, public speaking, school law and school management, personnel management, etc. She conducts regular workshops in her school to update her teachers with the latest teaching methods.

Mehta says the days spent at Lahore Montessori School were some of the best years of her life. She has incorporated some of the important aspects of teaching she experienced there for toddlers in her own school.

“The entire credit of my being what I am today goes to my mother and my mother-in-law. They gave me unflinching support. Without them I could have done nothing,” she says.

“I miss my direct attachment with students now. I mostly spent my time reading books or journals. Music rejuvenates me, specially ghazals,” she says. Though many prestigious awards have come her way, to Mehta, the best award is the love of her students.

An educationist to reckon with

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