Our story
Founded by the tea estates of Ilam in 1974, so their children would not have to be sent away to be educated.
Built so that Ilam’s children would not have to leave
Before 1974, a family in Ilam with academic ambitions for a child sent that child to Darjeeling. Eleven estate owners decided this was intolerable, put up the land and the first year’s salaries, and opened the college with sixty-three boys and the promise of admitting girls, which it did two years later.
The founding deed asks for three things: that no child of the district be refused on grounds of cost, that the leaving examination be sat in public, and that the college never advertise. Two of the three have been kept exactly.
“Sapientia et Virtus”
Wisdom and virtue
The college year by year
Sixty-three students, four masters and one hall, given by eleven tea estates.
The first twelve girls join Grade 6; the house system is redrawn around them.
Three laboratories and the observatory, funded entirely by alumni subscription.
NEB Grades 11 and 12 open with Science and Management; Humanities follows in 2015.
Meet our leaders
“We are not interested in being modern. We are interested in being right.”
Principal since 2016 and a master of physics here since 1993. He has read the roll at every morning assembly he has been present for.
“Marking is teaching. If it comes back without ink on it, nothing has happened.”
Oversees the two internal examination series and the tutorial system. Joined the English department in 2001.