# South Point School

South Point is a higher-secondary co-educational private school located in Kolkata, West Bengal and affiliated to Central Board of Secondary Education, 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. The school opened in 1954 and was the first co-educational school in Kolkata. Higher secondary (10+2) education was introduced in 1960.
The school entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest educational institute of the world in 1984 until 1992, in terms of student numbers. Regarded by many national school surveys as one of the best schools in India, the school has educated noted academics, politicians, artists, filmmakers, and entertainers. The school has among its alumni a Nobel laureate, several Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology laureates, and winners of National Film Awards.

## History

Founded on 1 April 1954 at 16 Mandeville Gardens, Kolkata, by Satikanta Guha and his wife, Pritylata Guha, the institution began as the first English medium co-educational school in Kolkata with just twenty students, and the founders’ vision was supported by a small, devoted group of teachers, with the initial faculty comprising prominent figures from Bengal's cultural, literary, and artistic circles.
Initially operational as a single unit, the school split into two buildings, with the high school shifting to Ballygunge Place in 1980. The school initially had among its faculty, noted actor and director Utpal Dutt, teaching English Literature, Gita Ghatak, noted Rabindrasangeet vocalist and acclaimed actress as a teacher of music, Kamal Kumar Majumdar, noted Bengali writer and critic, teaching Bengali and his younger sister, the artist Shanu Lahiri teaching arts and crafts.

## 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'.

## 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 the late Smt. Priyamvada Birla, philanthropist and wife of M.P. Birla Group founder Late Shri Madhav Prasad Birla. The campus is currently under construction.

## Notable alumni

Academia Sciences
* Saurabh Bagchi, Professor of Computer Science, Purdue University, ACM, IFIP, IEEE Distinguished Scientist, Humboldt Fellow
* Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee, Professor of Economics, MIT, Nobel Laureate in Economics
* Sumit Ranjan Das, high energy physicist and Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology laureate
* Abhik Ghosh, chemist, professor, and winner of the Hans Fischer Career Award (2022) for lifetime contributions
* Abhijit Mukherjee, scientist and Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology laureate
* Amitava Raychaudhuri, Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology laureate, physicist, professor emeritus, Department of Physics, Calcutta University (nephew of Amal Kumar Raychaudhuri)
* Sucharit Sarkar, mathematician
Humanities
* Supriya Chaudhuri, scholar of English literature, professor emerita of Jadavpur University
Writers
* Aroup Chatterjee, doctor, writer and critic
* Shamik Ghosh, Sahitya Akademi Youth Award-winning Bengali writer (2017; Government of India)
* Anuradha Roy, author whose book Sleeping on Jupiter was longlisted for the 2015 Man Booker Prize
Arts and entertainment
* Tanmoy Bose, percussionist and tabla player
* Bhaswar Chatterjee, actor
* Prosenjit Chatterjee, National Film Award-winning Bengali actor and Bengal Vibhushan (West Bengal Government) awardee
* Saswata Chatterjee, critically acclaimed National Film Award-winning Bengali actor
* Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury, National Film Award-winning filmmaker
* Sourav Das, Bengali actor
* Swarup Dutta, veteran Bengali actor
* Rituparno Ghosh, National Film Award-winning filmmaker
* Pratim D. Gupta, film critic, journalist, filmmaker
* Bauddhayan Mukherji, National Film Award-winning filmmaker
* Kamalini Mukherji, Rabindrasangeet vocalist
* Srijit Mukherji, National Film Award-winning filmmaker and screenwriter
* Bedabrata Pain, National Film Award-winning filmmaker, scientist, and inventor
* Sandip Ray, National Film Award-winning filmmaker (son of Satyajit Ray)
* Riddhi Sen, National Film Award-winning actor
* Subrata Sen, filmmaker
Politics
* Papiya Adhikari, actress and politician
* Ritabrata Banerjee, politician, Member of Rajya Sabha, India