Hindu School Honors First Graduates

March 15, 2004

Source: Kerala Next

http://www.keralanext.com/news/index.asp?id=29488&pg=0

On March 15, 2004 Kerala Next posted an Indo Asian News Service article that reported, "Proud parents, teachers and well-wishers of the only Hindu school in Africa have honoured its first batch of matriculates here. Ramesh Chhagan, founder member and current chairman of the Pretoria Hindu School (PHS) board, said the function was held not only to vindicate the establishment of the school in 1997 -- with just the first three grades -- against great odds but also to celebrate the running of a school with a Hindu ethos while not sacrificing any academic principles...'We are exceedingly proud because there was lots of doubt in the minds of some people about whether the concept of having a Hindu school would work but now all of that has been laid to rest,' said Chhagan." But he was at pains to explain that the title and the ethos of the Pretoria Hindu School should not deter pupils from other communities who wished to study there. 'We are quite keen to accommodate, for example, any pupil who wishes to take Islamic Studies as a subject or a Christian student who wants to take that as a subject. While the school was certainly designed to have a Hindu ethos, it is not exclusively for Hindu students. We are willing to open our doors to everyone, provided of course, that it is economically worthwhile to introduce other courses in terms of the number of pupils wanting to take those courses.'"