St. Xavier's School, Godavari


St. Xavier's School is a Nepalese Jesuit High School located in Godavari, Lalitpur District, Bagmati Zone. The school is about south of the city of Kathmandu. Founded in 1951 it is the oldest modern style educational institution of Nepal.

History

St. Xavier's is the oldest educational institution of Nepal and one of the best known. Invited by the king of Nepal Tribhuvan Shah the American Jesuit priest Fr Marshall D. Moran and a group of American Jesuit priests opened a residential school in the royal country villa of Godavari. That was in 1951. After a few years, because of the increasing number of students, the primary school was shifted to St. Xavier's School, Jawalakhel, located in Jawalakhel, in the south suburbs of Kathmandu. The high school remained in Godavari.
In 1969, due to ever growing demands for admission to the school, St. Xavier's, Godavari was turned into a full-fledged primary school and St. Xavier's, Jawalakhel was turned into a full-fledged high school.
It was an all-boys school until 1996, when another major decision turned St. Xavier's, Godavari into a co-educational day school, focused on educating children from the local area, that would again become a high school.

Present day

n and Nepalese Jesuits have taken the place of the American founders but the school is still run according to the same principles of education embodied in the Ratio studiorum of the Jesuits. Classes XI and XII are also being added as per the rule passed by the government of Nepal.
St. Xavier's Godavari is one of five schools in Nepal operated by the Jesuits. The other four are St. Xavier's School, Jawalakhel located in Lalitpur, and St. Xavier's College in Maitighar, both in Kathmandu Valley, while the others are St. Xavier's School, Deonia and Moran Memorial School, Bhadrapur, both in the Jhapa District.