St. Mary’s Higher Secondary School at Mhow (M P) India, is an institution for girls from all sections of society, regardless of caste, class or creed. This school was founded on 16th January 1893 by a group of seven French
Catholic Nuns of the Congregation of the Franciscan Sisters of St. Mary of the Angels. They had arrived in Mhow from France barely four months earlier, on 3rd October 1892,with hardly any knowledge of English and none at all of Hindi nor of the rich and diverse culture of India. So it was with deep faith in God and heroic courage that these humble nuns embarked upon this venture in the educational field.
St. Mary’s Convent School, as it was known then, soon became a well-appreciated institution. The Sisters dedicated themselves whole-heartedly to the efficient running of the school based on high moral principles. And their overall kindness had a heart –warming influence over the pupils, their parents, the teachers and over all those employed in the institution.
With deep trust in God they surmounted all hurdles and pledged themselves most earnestly to the Mission of education. Years passed and by 1926 St. Mary’s Convent School became St. Mary’s High School affiliated to the Oversees Board of Junior and Senior Cambridge Examinations conducted from Great Britain. It enjoyed a well- earned reputation of imparting an all-round education combined with co-curricular activities like PT exercises, music and singing, needle work etc and of being one of the best High School in what was then known as Central India and now is Madhya Pradesh. The self-sacrificing efforts of the French Sisters to have reached this stage of achievement within the time-span of not even 50 years after their arrival in India was indeed most praiseworthy.
Due to the needs of those times in 1948 St. Mary’s at Mhow was affiliated to the Ajmer Board of Education and in 1954 to the Madhya Bharat Board. It was only in 1961 that the school received recognition in the Higher Secondary School Certificate Syllabus from MP Board with more emphasis being given to Hindi. So far St. Mary’s concentrated on the course of Humanities. In 1968 the School started Science and Home Science courses. The latter course was discontinued when the institution was affiliated to the CBSE course in the year 2007. In 1948 the strength of school was 310 students and today it is 2250 .The school is still affiliated to the Board.
Today the aim and objective of the school remain the same as those visualized by the pioneer French Sisters. The chief focus of the school is academic proficiency and an all-round education including co-curricular activities specially based on high moral principles – faith in God and love for Him and for all human beings, truthfulness and selfless service specially to the poor and those in distress. The important concerns of today’s world are particularly to safeguard Environment and to work for humanitarian causes. St. Mary’s Higher Secondary School at Mhow encourages its students to respect and care for God’s gift of Creation and to be sincerely mindful of helping the poor and needy in their own way. The school also considers it necessary to make the senior students aware of the “Empowerment of Women” which is the clarion call of our modern times. Women today , unlike in years gone by, are playing significant roles in all branches of society and so our senior students are made conscious of playing their part later for the betterment of humanity. It is imperative to inspire them with these ideals while they are still in school so that later as adults they take responsible action and with God’s grace bring these values to fulfillment.