Chandra Sekhar Zila School

In the year 1856, four years after its inception, it was taken over by the Director of Public Instruction Bengal; its management being thrown upon a Local Committee of Education. As the Inspector General of Education, Central Provinces remarks in his Inspection Report in 1871, the education in the Provinces was so low then that the daily average attendance of the school was only 40. 

As it appears from the school's old records, the Anglo Vernacular School grew into a Zila School in 1864, 12 years after its inception, with 126 pupils on the rolls, the average attendance being 85 per day. The classes it was then maintaining were IV, V and VI termed as Uriya Classes and I, II, III, IV and V termed as English Classes. Then, in 1871, there were only 4 feeder schools very recently started in the town to supply children to the main school, that is, the Zila School. It was then holding its classes in the same building in which it had originally started. 

The period ranging for a term of about 16 years, i.e., from 1852 to 1868 may be designated as almost a lacuna in the annals of the school. Neither the District Gazetteer of Bengal nor that of Bihar and Orissa nor the old records of the school available shower sufficient light on this period. Aged people of this district who were students of the school during the first decade of the 20th century know not anything definite about the period. Students in the last part of the 19th century are not at all available and the period remains almost a blank in the century old history of the institution. 

This is recorded in the proceedings of the Zila School Committee that, in 1876, a dauntless and vigorous enthusiast in progress of education, Mr. Trilochan Brahma, moved a resolution proposing to open up the Entrance Class in the School. The Committee was not in favour of taking such a bold step lest the Inspector General of Education. C.P. might not approve of it. The Committee was so bold then ! The resolution was postponed to be taken up later, after having due consultation with the I. G. at the time of his next visit. However, the Inspector General of Education, C.P. was pleased to accord sanction and the long cherished class was opened in the school in 1885. The first batch appeared at the Entrance Examination in 1886, the school then being affiliated to Calcutta University and the Examination Centre being at Balasore. Out of the six students on the rolls, (1) Madan Mohan Pujari, (2) Madhusudan Mishra, (3) Ramlal Kahar, (4) Shyam Sundar Panda, (5) Ramprasad Bohidar, (6) Niladri Sahni, three could be sent up. The sent-up candidates were Madan Mohan Pujari, Madhusudan Mishra and Ramlal Kahar and out of them only two could successfully get through. It will be much interesting to note here that Late Mr. Ramprasad Bohidar, one of the talented first Oriya Zila School Headmasters appeared but could not be sent up. The Examinations were so stiff then. That was an age when sentences as :-

In 1885 the syllabus for the Entrance Examination comprised of 8 papers carrying 575 marks in aggregate passing mark being 192. The subjects for Examination were :

1. English Literature :  Total Marks 100, Pass Marks 33
2. English Grammar : Total Marks 100, Pass Marks 33
3. Sanskrit  : Total Marks 75, Pass Marks 25
4. English Translation : Total Marks 30, Pass Marks 10
5. Arithmetic & Algebra : Total Marks 50, Pass Marks 17
6. Euclid & Mensuration : Total Marks 80, Pass Marks 26
7. Physiology & Geography : Total Marks 80, Pass Marks 26
8. History  : Total Marks 60, Pass Marks 20

Through a long process of addition and alteration as felt necessary, due to the change in thought of the world, the Entrance Examination at peresent termed as High School Certificate Examination now*  comprises, though of the same number of papers, subjects of examination have varied greatly as:
 

The Victoria Hall (present one opened only in 1904) of the town was for sometime temporarily being used for school purpose as the school accommodation fell short of the requirement caused due to gradual but steady increase of the school rolls strength. The Inspector of Schools, Eastern Circle, C.P. recommends strongly for repairs of the matting work of the Victoria Hall in his Inspection Report in 1891.

During the period there was no such facility as the present day 10% full Freestudentship. Rule in vogue was only a reduction in the school fee. This little amount of facility, if you call it at all a facility, was being granted for the school boys any time during the year round by the School Committee. It will surely be a subject of interest to note here that persons like Rai Saheb Dasrathi Pujari, a very active member of the School Committee and Pandit Kashinath Panda, Landlord of Larambha,  persons of power and pelf, were also applying for reduction of School Fees of their sons or wards and the School Committee was so impartial and judicious then that it ventured to reject their applications.

The school holidays were for Bhratri Jiuntia, Pura Amabasya and Gundikhai etc., the total number of holidays during a year being much less than what it is now.

The service conditions of the Vernacular Teachers were then very abnormal and queer. They, though Govt. Servants, were appointed on such conditions that they would be allowed to go on long leave only when they would give a substitute to work for them in the school (1859).

The period ranging from 1889 to 1894 is the most shining and spectacular part in the hoary past of more than hundred years of the school. To commemorate the name of Late Mr. W,. Nathersole the Settlement Commissioner of Central Provinces who had very recently met his death then, Rs. 407/6/6 pies had been subscribed and donated by the Settlement Officials of Sambalpur in 1889 to be invested in permanent securities and the accrued interest thereon to be awarded as NATHERSOLE PRIZE to the student securing the highest marks in and passing the Entrance Examination from Sambalpur High School. Labanidhar Meher was the first recipient of the Prize in 1890. During 1890, the benevolent and progressive Maharaja of Keonjhar donated Rs. 1,800/- to be invested permanently and the interest accruing thereon spent in awarding KEONJHAR SCHOLARSHIP every year to two Oriya poor students reading in the school for a term of two years. It fetched annually Rs. 54/- and it was quite sufficient to award two scholarships of Rs. 2/- each a month for 12 months for two students then, when rice was selling Re.1/- a maund. The noble purpose of the scholarship has been lost sight of by now due to abnormal rise in price i.e. Rs. 30/- a maund. In veiw of this fact it is now high time to move the proper authority to amend the condition of the Trust relating to interest to vary as the rate of interest on fixed deposits with Reserve Bank of India varies. According to the prevailing rate of interest on fixed deposits the Trust now ought to fetch 7% annually. Mr. Morris, the then Chief Ccommissioner of C.P. had a special interest in spreading education in Sambalpur District, To commemorate his name, Rs. 18,000/- donated by the public of Sambalpur District and the Rajas of Eastern States Agency was invested with the consent of the donors in the year 1892 in permanent securities the accrued interest thereon to be awarded as MORRIS SCHOLARSHIP to genuine Sambalpur students (permanent residents of Sambalpur district) who after passing the Entrance Examination from Sambalpur High School prosecute further education in colleges. For KUSUM KAMINI PRIZE to be awarded to the student securing the highest marks in the Entrance Examination among the successful candidates from Sambalpur High School, a Trust of Rs. 500/- donated by late Mr. Chandra Kumar Mukherjee, the then Assistant conservator of Forests, C.P. was opened in 1893. A trust of another Rs. 500/- was opened in the name of Late Mr. Edward Norman Baker, Lt. Governor of Bengal to award BAKER’S MEDAL in the same manner as Kusum Kamini Prize, in 1910. MAHANTA BEHARIDAS MEDAL trust was opened with the donation of Rs. 600/- from Mahanta Sri Nilambardas in 1934 in honour of his late Guru Mahant Beharidas to award a medal to the boy securing the highest marks in Sanskrit among all the successful candidates of Sambalpur Zila School appearing at the Matriculation Examination.

The school bore the name after Mr. Morris as Morris High school upto 1890 and was being accommodated in a building very recently constructed then in place of the old Raja’s school building. With the moral and pecuniary help very benignly extended out by the European Officials and the moneyed and influencial people of the District, the school started to grow in size and strength by and by enriching its name and prestige. The No. on the rolls and of the members of the staff grew proportionately.

1868 1885 1890 1927 1950
  126   150    200   410    650

The school building became insufficient in space and finally the number on the rolls grew beyond accommodation. The nearby building, that is, the Fraser Club was taken on hire and even then the problem could not be solved. The Government of Bihar and Orissa were kind enough to construct a large double storeyed building with a vast open ground all around to serve the purpose of Athletic Ground near the Railway Road Station and the High School was shifted to the new building on 3.1.1927. Then it was being known as Sambalpur Zila School. By the by a well ventilated and well furnished pucca building was constructed beside the School Building to house the school hostel for 45 students.

During the second World War, in 1942, the Axis Powers bombarded the Orissa Coastal area and the Government of Orissa consequently shifted their Secretariat to Sambalpur and that was accommodated in the spacious Sambalpur Zila School building. The School had to be held in a temporary shed built of bamboo-netted and mud-plastered walls and straw-thatched roof just beside the big High School Building. As the war cloud hovering over India receded outside the danger zone, the Secretariat Office was shifted back to Cuttack, making room temporarily for the Sambalpur College in the School Building. The School, for the sake of its older counterpart the college had to rot under the thatched roof. In the year 1952 the High School was renamed after shining Chandra Sekhar Behera, a brilliant lawyer and a successful Chairman of Sambalpur Municipality, who had risked his all for the cause of the National Struggle. The powerful college sitting heavily upon the building could not be made to stand up and sit elsewhere and so after long 12 years of suffering and degradation under the thatched roof the School had to forego its claim over the building and shift down in 1954 to the double storied building now looking so majestically over Pension Para with a statue of the Father of the Nation holding his staff in his hand guarding the gate as sentinel. But it was all in vain. The Building having no boundary walls had become a rest-shed for the ruffians during the off school hours. The small levelled up area around the building, being open to all, had become a veritable headache to the school authorities. Breakage of the glass panes and windows, electric switch boards and bulbs and theft of the moveable articles of the school had become a regular feature. The school had no hostel accommodation, no garden and no playground for its six hundred and odd number of pupils. There were no quarters for its members of the staff. But by now these problems have been solved to some extent. Quarters for only 5 out of 30 members of the staff have been constructed in 1960. A double-storeyed hostel building to accommodate 50 boarders has been constructed in 1962. The school got its boundary (though only 4 feet high) walls the same year. The verandah of the school has been closed with collapsible iron gates in 1963.

It being felt that Sambalpur shall develop commercially to a great extent in near future, the Education Department of Orissa decided upon imparting technical education in commerce and consequently in 1948 opened the Commerce classes in the school. The school thereafter was converted to a technical school. It ran successfully for 10 years and in 1958 the Department decided to abolish it and now the school is purely a General one. Now it offers teaching in the following Optional subjects : (a) Mathematics, (b) Agriculture, (c) Drawing, (d) Sanskrit, and (e) Shorthand and Typewriting. There is full provision for teaching of Hindi Rastrabhasa, Urdu and Persian. 

The Highest four classes are triplicated and the rest are duplicated. The Primary two classes, i.e., the IV and V have now been abolished. The building has been provided with a very big hall measuring 100’ X 40’ with a theatre pandal but due to faulty construction detected later, it has been declared unsafe and its use forbidden by the P.W.D. In 1961 a Craft Shed was erected and after the Craft Teacher joined in 1961 the school started offering teaching in Craft. The Craft is woodwork.

N.C.C. was introduced in the School in 1948 with only one Troupe of one Officer and 33 Cadets. In 1954 the second Troupe was started and now there are two Troupes having a strength of 2 Officers and 100 Cadets  functioning in the School. An A.C.C. Unit was started in this institution but since 1956 it has stopped functioning. A Red Cross Group and a batch of Boys Scouts exist here since 1934. The present strength of the members of the Staff is 30 and of the students on the rolls is 700. This School had been made a centre for entrance, Matriculation and High School Certificate Examination since 1917. Since 1964 the centre has been abolished.

The following dignitaries served as Headmasters of the School. The names of Headmasters for the period left out could not be traced out and the rest are arranged chronologically :
 

1858-61	Ramkumar Singh	1919-25	Madhusudan Das, B.A., B.T.
1858-61	Mahesh Chandra Mukherjee	1925-25	Chintamoni Kar
1861-61	Madan Mohan Rai	1925-29	Ananda Chandra Pati
1868-70	Bhobani Sankarjee	1929-31	Bishwambhar Misra
1870-72	M. Mitra, B.A.	1931-32	Jadubir Prasad
1872-73	Siddeswar Bandopadhye	1932-35	Mahesh Chandra Pradhan
1873-74	Dharanidhar Misra	1935-35	A. K. Banerjee
1874-79	Girish Chandra Ghosh	1935-35	Jagannath Tripathy
1879-80	Hanuman Prasad	1935-36	Ratnakar Pati
1880-83	Girish Chandra Ghosh	1936-38	Sukanta Rao
1883-88	Nandalal Dubey	1938-40	Krishna Chandra Sengupta
1888-91	Waman Daji Oke	1940-42	Krishna Chandra Mohanty
1891-92	Vishnu Ramchandra Joshi	1942-44	Adhiraj Mohan Senapati
1892-92	Waman Daji Oke	1944-45	Mvi. A. Hamid Khan
1892-96	Bijoy Chandra Majumdar	1945-47	Hari Mohan Patra
1896-01	Dasarathi Panigrahi	1947-49	Sarat Chandra Ghosh B.Sc.
1901-02	Vishnu Ramchandra Joshi	1949-50	Baikunthnath Patnaik M.A., D.ED.
1902-07	Dasarathi Panigrahi B.A.	1950-54	Baidyanath Rath B.Sc., L.T.
1907-08	Hari Prasad Das	1954-55	Manmohan Patnaik (Acting) B.Sc., D.ED.
1908-11	Ramprasad Bohidar B.A,B.L.	1955-58	Nanda Kishore Rath B.Sc. D.ED.
1911-12	Nandakrishore Bal, B.A., B.T.	1958-58	Kanhu Mishra (Incharge) B.A., DED.
1912-16	Suresh Chandra Gupta	1958	Manmohan Patnaik (continuing) *
1916-19	Ananda Chandra Pati	-
1919-1919	Dibya Singh Mishra	-	* As in  1965

(1) Inspection Reports of the years 1871 to 1910
(2) Proceedings of Manging Committee from 1870 to 1910
(3) Certificate Register from 1869 to 1871
(4) Report on Progress of Education in Central Provinces from 1860 to 1871.
(5) History of Trust Funds in C.P. 186.
(6) School Log Book from 1920-45
(7) School old files.