IISJ - International Indian School Jeddah

The International Indian School, Jeddah, known as Embassy of India School till 1996, is a secondary school for boys and girls in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia It was founded in 1969. The school's slogan is "Knowledge is Light". The school's name is colloquially abbreviated to "IISJ". The school has been reputed to be the largest school in KSA.

History

The school started as a small school in Jeddah. It was encouraged by expatriates and prominent people of the Indian community residing in Jeddah. At one time, private Indian schools were not allowed in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. As a result, the children of Indian expatriates in Saudi Arabia had no option but to join this school or join Saudi schools in which the medium of teaching was Arabic. Rafiuddin S. Fazulbhoy founded the school in 1969. The then-Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi laid the foundation of then "Embassy of India School, Jeddah". Gradually, every Indian in Jeddah started to learn in this school and they now have nearly 13500 students. The longest serving Principal of the School was Dr. Naimullah Khan during whose time the Boys' Section shifted to the now existing building. Dr. Khan served for almost 8 years and during his tenure, countless developments took place in this school. On 16 March 2011, the school inaugurated an additional building hired to accommodate the increasing number of students. The school has plans to further acquire 50,000sqmts of land for the construction of new premises to cater the increasing number of admissions.

Sections and Blocks

The policy of the Ministry of Education Saudi Arabia does not favor co-education. As a result, separate shift system was followed in the same building for boys and girls until the completion of construction of a new Boys' Section building in 1994. Now, there exist separate the Boys' Section and the Girls' Section, which are actually few kilometers apart. For academic ease, the classes in each section are divided into the following Block system. Each section has its own blocks. The Kindergarten, however, is common to both sections.

• I-II Block, i.e., classes 1st and 2nd;
• III-V Block, i.e., classes 3rd, 4th and 5th;
• VI-VIII Block, i.e., classes 6th, 7th and 8th;
• IX-XII Block, i.e., classes 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th.

The classes of Boys' Section are suffixed 'B' while those of Girls' Section are suffixed 'A', followed by a number. For example, VIII-B-8 denotes the eighth classroom of 8th standard in the Boys' Section.

Library

IISJ has full-fledged well-endowed library with spacious reference and reading area both in the Boys’ and Girls’ Sections to benefit students in their pursuit of knowledge. The Library subscribes to leading Indian and foreign journals in various fields through which the students understand the world and the competition that is taking place around for a better development. These books also help to enhance the knowledge of such students to develop their skill paving a path for them to a bright future.

E Library

There has been an addition of online library also with about 5 to 6 computers .An off-line webpage was also designed by two students of IISJ (Mohammed Al-Khalid and Saad Mohammed Saleem Patel),containing almost 1000 books(Short stories,novels,comics etc.)and links to many news papers and magazines in 4 languages(i.e English,Urdu,Arabic and Malayalam).

Sports

Students can play indoor games such as table tennis, badminton, chess and carrom . Amongst outdoor games the school provides facilities for basketball, volleyball, cricket,throwball, shotput, long jump and football. Students play all outdoor games on the compound ground. Sports Meet is organised every year. The students participate in various games/sports regularly as well as in interschool cluster meet.

Open School

For those who are residing far away from Jeddah, the Open School facility offers formal education in an informal way. Staff from the school is sent to different centers to conduct examinations.

Transport

The school provides transport facility to students and staff on routes of Jeddah with more than 90 maintained buses and for Makkah there are more than 10 new buses. Punctual routine has been followed throughout the transportation department for arriving at the school premises in time.

Auditorium

The school has two auditoriums

The Boys's Section currently holds one of the largest auditoriums in the city which has a capacity of at least 2000 spectators for cultural shows, and many other entertainment events which are sometimes organized after school timings with a private registration and permission for the programmes. Having all the available facilities of sound, lighting and other show event systems installed also with a wide centralized Air conditioners, the usual running program coordinator (privately organized events) finds it easy to run the show without any help or contract from private agencies for the above necessities.

The Girls's Section auditorium is known as Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru Auditorium.

Courses Offered

The school offers all subjects for primary and secondary levels to prepare the students for AISS (X) CBSE examinations. In senior secondary Humanities, Commerce and Science are offered as course streams. The optional subjects include Mathematics, Computer Science, Informatics, Home Science, Physical Education, Biology and oriental languages.