Loyola High School & Junior College, Pune

Loyola High School & Junior College

The seeds of Loyola High School took roots in the groundbreaking of the National Defence Academy (NDA), a world-class training facilities for officers of the Indian Armed Forces, back in 1954. Fr Rudolf Schoch S.J. through the good offices of then Chief Engineer Mr W X Mascarenhas, an ex-Vincentian, offered to establish a High School under the auspices of the Poona Jesuits Schools' Society (PJSS), an umbrella body he had founded for the effective management of schools of the Poona-Belgaum Jesuit Province. He is quoted as saying, "should it be advisable to establish two schools, one for Officers' children and the other for other ranks (with Hindi as the medium of instruction) the PJSS would be ready to oblige".

Fr Oesch at NDA School prize ceremony

The powers that be made the right choice in working with PJSS and the NDA school opened on February 2nd 1955 with Fr Schoch as principal in charge of 136 children in the English section and 154 in the Hindi section. Sadly a populist anti-missionary wave sweeping Defence Ministry in New Delhi, arbitrarily gave control of the Hindi medium section to the Maharashtra Rashtrabhasha Sabha, Poona. The forward-thinking Commandant Major General E Habibullah however stalled any further changes since he highly valued the work of the Jesuits at NDA. 

Recruiting new students to this remote location however proved to be far more fractious problem, with only 67 students enrolled in standards V-X in June 1957. When Fr A Rehm took over as Principal, student enrolment was expanded to 240 with the introduction of the primary and kindergarten sections. Fr Schoch even floated the idea of enrolling children of Officers who were transferred to remote locations but once again the Defence Ministry in New Delhi put its foot down prevented any further expansion of the school facilities. Seeing the writing on the wall, Fr Schoch started looking for an alternative location for a school.

As luck would have it, at a tea party at the Governor's place, Fr Schoch met Dr. K Venkataraman, Director of N.C.L. (1957-66) who suggested that the Jesuits consider some land nearby for the new school. After all, National Chemical Laboratory was a premier research, development and consulting organisation attracting the best talents from all over the country but there was no nearby English medium school for its residents. 

When the Maharashtra Government asked Fr. Schoch in the late 1950s where he would like to set up a new school, he had no hesitation in opting for the outlying area of Aundh-Pashan near N.C.L. As the sayings go, "Strike when the iron is hot. Go big or go home." He asked for a whole hillock and additional land to set up what is today Loyola's. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) had no hesitation in approving the lease of the land in April 1960, at a nominal fee of rupee one per acre per annum.

Belong long the hills were buzzing with excavation and construction heavy machinery. The gargantuan task of levelling the hillside fell to the Col. J.V.P. Braganza of the Bombay Engineering Group, an elite Corps of Engineers of the Indian Army based in Khadki - and they came through with flying colours! In three short months, the foundation stone for Loyola's was laid by Prof. M. S. Thacker, then Director General of CSIR on January 29, 1961.  

To cover the construction costs of roughly 5 lacs rupees, donations big and small poured in. Foreign aid from the Swiss and German Governments poured in. Back in 1952, Fr. Schoch had helped start German language courses in Maharashtra Schools and Pune University, additionally Fr Schoch had greatly assisted in founding of the Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan in Pune, so there was no hesitation in reciprocating by helping fund the construction of Loyola High School. But what touched Fr. Schoch the most were the innumerable small donations of Rs. 10/-, Rs. 50/- from the less fortunate, evoking the Biblical example of the widow's mite. 

On Sunday, June 11, 1961, in front of an unfinished building, amongst heaps of bricks with sand and bulldozers a motley group of boys, girls and teachers stood to attention, raptly listening to Fr. Schoch as he announced that Loyola High School, named after the founder of the Order of Jesuits, St Ignatius Loyola, had been officially inaugurated. This momentous first assembly lasted 2 hours, at the end of which Fr. Schoch declared a holiday. 

Loyola Riklin Cup Winners (1964-65)

Fr. Anton Rehm S.J. was the first principal until 1963 when Fr. Alphons Oesch S.J. took over for another 3 years. Fr Schoch would return as principal of Loyola from 1966 to 1973. Once again we can credit his drive and far-sightedness for the building of the Library Block, Father's house and Staff quarters in 1967-68, as well as the Swimming pool in February 1971 which was indubitably the envy of all schools. On the occasion of the inauguration of the pool Fr Schoch is quoted as saying "This school is now one of the finest. We are in beautiful surrounding, well equipped". To the very end, Loyola School was the apple of his eye!

Loyola High School, Class of 1965

Initially, 264 of the 312 registered students were transferred from St Vincent's with the Mutha-Mulla river being the boundary between the jurisdictions of the two sister school. The first batch of Std X students passed out in 1962. The school had eleven standards and Std X and XI were ‘co-ed’ till 1965 – to accommodate girls from the adjacent St. Joseph School, still under construction. Within ten years the enrolment ballooned to nearly a thousand students.

Loyola High School Staff

Back row: P T Teacher, Mr Khatavkar, Mr Chandgule, Mr Gadgil, Mr Lobo (office clerk), Office support

2nd row from back: Fr Salve, Mr George, Mr Nimbalkar, Mr Xavier, Mr Contractor, Mr Devasthali, Mr Swamy

3rd row from back: Science lab, Ms Kaur, ??, Mrs Zacharaias, Mrs Yvette Gonsalves, Mr Lobo, Mr Nagarajan (office clerk)

2nd row from front: Mrs Awati, ??, Mrs Pacheco (Ms Fernandes), Mr Delcy Nazareth, Mr Shirke, Mrs Rajagopalan, ??, Mrs Rodrigues, Ms. Tellis

Front row: Ms Nagpal, Mrs Gaurishankar, Fr Clement, Mrs Gupta, Fr Kenneth Misquitta, Mr Mahamuni, Fr Theo de Sales, Mrs Farias, Mrs Clarissa Verdi

The recommendations of the Kothari Commission regarding higher education gave the school the impetus to establish advanced Science laboratories. Once again Fr Schoch was able to tap into Swiss and German donors for funds and in June 1969, pre-degree classes were started at Loyola, this was eventually extended to FY (first year) level and was replaced by the new 10+2 system in 1975. With the addition of the HSC section in 1980, this further increased to 1300 students including 140 boys and 60 girls in standards XI and XII.