Although we have already begun the scholastic year, we are about to launch in full steam ahead in the coming days. And it gives me immense joy to welcome you all back to your beloved school of excellence, Nirmala Sr. Sec. School, a home away from home. I am Sr. Smitha Mathew UMI, your new Principal. As far as I am concerned, I am beginning yet another phase of my life journey, with you all as my friends on the way. Thank you for being with me.

As I think of education, I think of it as essentially a process of empowering people to be wholesome. In schools, we talk mostly of IQ, of scores and grades and such competitive things. But this, I am afraid, does not make a person whole. It could rather make us selfish, concerned only about ourselves and even aggressive. In the school of life, however, we also talk of Emotional Quotient (EQ), Social Quotient (SQ), Cultural Quotient (CQ), etc. which are some of the aspects of human life, covering cognitive, behavioural and interpersonal dimensions of our human personality. But even these do not, I am afraid, make us truly wholesome.