‘Beacon of light’: New Beaconhouse A’ level campus, a promising facility, opens to all

The campus provides a mix of curricular and extra-curricular activities for every student.

KARACHI:

Picking schools is perhaps one of the toughest decisions kids and parents come across as finding a school that promises a balance between academics and extra-curricular activities appears to be an almost impossible task. Considering this conundrum, open days, such as the one hosted by the Beaconhouse School System on Monday, are an ideal opportunity for parents and potential students to learn about institutions first-hand instead of just going through brochures.

Showcasing its brand-new A’ level campus in Defence Housing Authority, the Beaconhouse School System held an open day to welcome prospective students and apprise them about the academic and extra-curricular facilities available to them at the new premises.

The session attracted a large number of students, accompanied by their parents and families, who wanted to meet the faculty and get acquainted with the college. Before the release of O’ level results next month, it offered an ideal opportunity for the school to attract potential students, as well as for the students, who would currently be weighing all available options.



Under one roof

The five-storey building of the college campus offers a stimulating and innovative feel inside. The new campus has seemingly been designed to meet all of the students’ needs under one roof - including a fully-functional gym to cater to the fitness enthusiast while X-360 video games promise unending fun for the virtual gamers. The campus also houses an art and media studio to facilitate learning with the help of modern equipment and techniques while the collection at the library is also impressive.

After the customary tour of the campus, students and parents got down to real business and inquired about the subject combinations available at the school, showing keenness to know whether their child could opt for his/ her preferred choice of subjects.

“Before coming here, I was not even considering the Beaconhouse for my A’ levels,” remarked Hassaan Murtaza, who had appeared in his O’ level exams through the BVS Parsi High School. “The building, from its façade, appears dull and insipid but once you step inside and survey two or three floors, you cannot help but fall in love with it.”

Murtaza, like many O’ level graduates, appeared struggling in prioritising his personal preferences vis-à-vis the preferences dictated by his parents and peers. “As for now, I do not even know what I have to do in future. I am calculating my options with a preference for media studies, which in very unconventional at the A’ levels,” he said.  “Choice for the right institution is certainly tough as there are so many of them but the choice for right subjects usually stays between medical and engineering disciplines,” he said. “If students attempt to break the tradition, their parents force them to stay with the conventional choice of subjects.”

The new campus, officially named as the Beconhouse College Campus Defence, however, offers various subjects as well as a blend of ‘unorthodox subjects’ to cater to the students’ unique needs and future plans.

Since the inception of the Beaconhouse School System’s A’ level programme in 1992, the campus will officially serve as the forth venue for post-O’ level studies in Karachi, after one each in PECHS, Gulshan-e-Iqbal, North Nazimabad areas.

Earlier, the Clifton and Jubilee campuses housed the A’ level students but since both have been merged and downgraded to O’ level studies, there was a dire need for an A’ level facility in the area.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 7^th, 2013.