Est. 1991 · Aliganj, Lucknow
R.K. Senior Secondary School was founded in Aliganj in 1991 by Smt. Asha Shukla and Shri Ram Kumar Shukla, with primary classes, a few rooms, and one promise — that every child here would be known by name rather than by roll number. The buildings have changed since. Very little else has.
The founding promise, and the one we are judged by. It is why our teachers are chosen for how they think rather than only for what they scored, and why so many of them stay. A teacher who remains for years learns a family, and a family that is known is treated differently from one that is processed.
Classes were added because the children already here needed the next one, not because a plan demanded it. When the first batches reached the end of Class X, the school built Class XI and XII rather than send them elsewhere. Science, Commerce and Humanities all run today, so a child can join young and leave with a board certificate from the same gate.
Science and computer laboratories where students handle the apparatus themselves. A library that has grown a shelf at a time. A ground, courts, and rooms for music, dance and art. None of these are promises for the future — they are on the campus now, and any parent visiting is welcome to walk into them.
Every student belongs to one of four houses — Nalanda, Takshashila, Vallabhi or Vikramshila — and competes for it through the year in sport, debate, quiz and culture. Annual Day, Independence Day and Republic Day have been on the calendar for as long as anyone here remembers. A school is held together by these repetitions as much as by its syllabus.
Some of the parents bringing children to the gate in the morning were students here themselves, and several of our teachers have taught both. It is the clearest evidence we have that the promise held, because families do not return to a school that let them down.
Every child known by name. Everything else followed from that.
We are not the largest school in Lucknow, and we have never tried to be. We are the school that has stayed with what it was founded for — steady teaching, honest values, and a place where a child is known.
We are still piecing together a fuller record of the school's early years. If you were here in the 1990s and have photographs, report cards or memories, we would like to hear from you.
Write to the schoolPhotographs from across the school’s history.
