For the principal of the Diamond Jubilee High School, Hyderabad [India] leadership isn’t only imparting knowledge to students but also helping colleagues build emotional strength and technical skills. Sujatha Gade has been in the education sector for close to three decades, and is sure about one thing: As a teacher, it is never about just helping a student graduate from one grade to another. It is also about shaping a child’s future by helping her build a career according to her aptitude, and make her an emotionally strong individual.
The principal of the Diamond Jubilee High School in Hyderabad—which is managed by the non-profit Aga Khan Education Services (AKES), India — leads a team of close to 55 people, out of which 42 are teachers and the rest are administrative and contractual staff. She has been occupying leadership positions in various international schools in Hyderabad over the years, and this is her seventh year working with AKES, India.
Divya J. Shekhar, Staff Writer
Full article at Forbes India
Aga Khan III
Sir Sultan Muhammad Shah Aga Khan III, the forty-eighth Imam of the Nizari Ismailis, succeeding to the Imamat in 1885. He played a significant role in the international affairs of his time, and his long public career had many dimensions. The Imam’s involvement on the world stage resulted in many honours bestowed on him in recognition of his service.
Throughout his life, Aga Khan III campaigned vigorously for educational opportunities for all. He believed that “education alone could release the poor from his poverty, the slave from his bondage, the ignorant from his bewilderment, and the downtrodden from his degradation. … It was only through education that eminent literary men and women would ultimately emerge to develop every facet of human life – intellectual, spiritual, and religious” (Aga Khan III: A Study in Humanism, The Institute of Ismaili Studies). During his Imamate, Aga Khan III established a network of schools, for girls and boys, in the Indian subcontinent and East Africa, also founding the East African Muslim Welfare Society in the 1940s for the education of indigenous Muslims of the region. He was instrumental in the upgrading of the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College to university status (more on Aga Khan III at Nimirasbolg).
Upon completion of 60 years of his Imamate, the Ismaili community commemorated Imam Sir Sultan Muhammad Shah’s Diamond Jubilee by weighing Imam against diamonds. The first commemoration ceremony took place on March 10, 1946 in Bombay (now Mumbai), India, followed by one in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on August 15, 1946. The value of the diamonds was returned to the community to create trust funds for educational and economic projects.
In Bombay, the fund enabled the establishment of the Diamond Jubilee High School for Girls and Diamond Jubilee High School for Boys, and Diamond Jubilee School, Hyderabad, Diamond Jubilee High School, Pakora, Gilgit-Baltistan, as well as throughout the remote northern areas of what is now Pakistan. (See Aga Khan Schools in Pakistan).
In Dar-es Salaam, Imam dedicated the proceeds of the gift of diamonds for the creation of the Diamond Jubilee Investment Trust to which he made a further contribution (The Ismaili Imamat). The Diamond Jubilee Investment Trust Limited was officially incorporated in Dar-es Salaam on July 13, 1945 (more at Commemorating 75th anniversary of Diamond Jubilee Trust at Nimirasblog).
Ismailimail 