India 'International'

HELLLLLP!!!!!

We, the Indian Middle Class, are at the receiving end of an 'International' conspiracy! The infamous ‘Foreign Hand’ has diversified beyond politics now! I am speaking of the 'International' Schools that are springing up at an alarming rate all over the countryside.

Until 15 years ago or so, the magic mantra in education was 'Convent Schools'. Back then, everybody wanted the 'Convent' school tag. Every Sharmaji, Ghosh babu and Singh saab would proudly announce, "Our son goes to a Convent, you know!" And while this might conjure up the image of an adolescent boy running amuck amongst a flock of nuns, in reality it would probably mean the boy attended a school run by missionaries. It was equally likely, however, that the kid went to some place called 'St. Vivekananda Convent Public School'. Or maybe even, 'DAV Public Convent School'. DAV-Public-Convent!! What kind of lethal cocktail is that, you might think... but yeh India hai yaar, the land of Matar Paneer Pizza and International Vaishnav cuisine. Yahan sab kuch possible hai! Apart from catching Don, that is.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, what 'Convent' schools were to the Indian middle class at one time, 'International' schools are today.

Now, everybody wants to jump on to the 'International' bandwagon. No longer is ‘International’ a bastion of the rich and famous. Go to any middle-class neighbourhood in a metro. Go to Warangal, Chhindwara or Jhumri Telaiya. Chances are, there is at least one 'International' school there.

However, 'International' schools today are no more ‘International’ than the 'Convent schools' of yore were places ‘inhabited and run by nuns’. Based on my observations, I would say there are essentially 3 types of International Schools:

1. The La-Di-Da International School (Or, as they increasingly seem to prefer calling themselves now – the La-Di-Da ‘World’ School). These are the schools where the rich and famous RNIs (Resident Non Indians) send their children. These schools follow an International(IB or IGCSE) curriculum. But more importantly, the principal (male or female) has the liberty to come to school wearing shorts, and the first mandatory lesson for every student is 'How to Walk with your Nose in the Air.' They also learn other essential life skills, like - 'How to tell in half a sip whether the water that you have been served is really Evian or not'...

2. At the opposite end of the spectrum, there are the 'International Public Schools' - the modern day avatars of the ‘ST. Vivekananda DAV Convent Public Schools'. Schools with a 'flavour of the month' approach to education (and accordingly, tag 'Convent', 'Public' or 'International' on to the school's name) - to beckon to the largest possible number of gullible middle class parents.

3. And finally, there are the middle of the road ‘BlueToes International Schools’ of the world – who believe that adopting an outlandish name will catapult them into the class of La-Di-Da International schools. Here, the teachers themselves try to master how to walk with their noses in the air, before they impart this important skill to the students.

We are one of those hapless parents who have inadvertently landed up in the grip of the Foreign Hand. Trying to choose the 'best education' for our daughter, Ananya, we enrolled her in an International school that was set up in our neighbourhood. Two years down the line, we are rubbing our heads and trying to figure out exactly what kind of blunt weapon we've coshed ourselves with...

The 'Foreign' Hand(s)

The school, though new, belonged to a school chain of some repute, and we were given to understand that the school will:

• follow the highly esteemed Cambridge (CIE) Curriculum
• engage highly experienced teachers
• introduce a huge number of co-curricular activities
• embrace a truly ‘International’ spirit

We soon found out exactly how true each of these were...

• 'following' the highly esteemed Cambridge Curriculum – So it is done... by the teachers, at least. In other words, the teachers are 'following' the syllabus so zealously, they have forgotten all about the kids... leaving them far, far behind...
• engaging 'highly experienced' teachers – True again. For example, the Physics teacher might be an accomplished cook, and the Music teacher might have vast experience in gardening. But previous experience in what they have to teach the kids - bah, that is so, so passe!
• introducing a number of co-curricular activities – Ekdum true. A whole shedload of them, actually. Here’s a list:
  --Football coaching started. 2 full sets of football kit bought. 2 matches played. Football coaching stopped.
  --Keyboard lessons started. Huge, expensive keyboard bought. Lugged to school once every week for 3 weeks. Keyboard classes abandoned.
  --Skating lessons started. Most expensive skates in the market bought (upon teacher’s insistence) along with full skating kit. A grand total of 3 classes over 2 weeks. Skating lessons stopped.
  And that is just the beginning of the list...
  Well, they said they would introduce many activities, they introduced many activities. Who had said anything about continuity or quality, anyway?
• embracing a truly ‘International’ spirit - Sure! True 'international spirit' was amply demonstrated when the school made a dress code for the teachers - 'AVOID Indian wear'. It's also nurtured in many other small ways - like the music lessons, where the kids engage in the deeply artistic activity of downloading the latest Justin Bieber songs (and their lyrics) from Youtube. And this, under instructions from the music teacher, mind you! But recently, they truly outdid themselves in this 'International spirit' thing with a real brainwave - they made it compulsory for the kids to buy a blazer! Way to go!

Last week, I saw Ananya leave for school - yoga mat tucked under one arm, umbrella hanging from the other, 30 Kg school bag mounted on her shoulder - and of course, blazer firmly in place over her clothes. In the Mumbai rains. With the sweltering heat.

Time to look out for a new school, I guess.

Stop #1: Bhatiwara (continued)

"The should we hope for our future"


(continuing the Bhatiwara school story...)

The secondary school was next. There, the teachers sat in the ‘staff room’ correcting papers of the recently held monthly tests. Meanwhile, most of the students just sat listlessly in their classrooms, doing nothing. It is funny, how without learning anything they go on having tests.

The teachers were correcting the papers with such a grave air that I did not even dare to ask them to take a class. Instead I sat around, and started looking through the corrected papers.

They were Class 8 English papers, with the usual stuff – grammar, paragraph, textual based questions.

Question #3 caught my imagination – it asked, “What should we hope for our future?”. A textual question – but an intriguing one.

Most of the papers had questions copied from the board, but not much else. The students’  favourite mode of ‘answering’ seemed to be to pick some random word (or group words) from that or some other question and rewrite those as the ‘answer’. Like:

Q: “Who were trapped in the well?”
A: “Should we hope trapped in the well”

As I looked through more papers, those of the higher scoring students, my consternation grew. In one question, the students were asked to write a paragraph on ‘My family’.

I picked the paper of the student who had scored ‘well’ on this question. This is how his answer script looked:

My family

“I have a pet dog.
His name is Moti.
He is black in colour.” 

And so on...

Sanjay, their teacher, saw me staring at this answer and explained. Apparently, the only paragraph ‘taught’/dictated in class was ‘My Pet Animal’. So the few students who had the ability to memorize, had done so and tried to reproduce it verbatim... oblivious to the fact that the topic given in the exam was quite different.

Sanjay defended it saying that he had to give marks to whoever had written anything, since the standard was so abysmal and 70% students could not write, and hence not even attempt the question.

There was more. There was an essay to be written on ‘My school’. I am replicating here part of the essay written by one of the best students in the class – interspersed with my own comments in italics. 

My School

The actual answer script

I read in Senior Middle School Bhatiwara.
(Ok. The start seems encouraging!)

It has a red building with 15 rooms.
(Well, it is actually a blue building with 3 rooms.)

There are 35 teachers in my school.
(The school has 3 teachers, counting the para teacher. Well, it is understandable that to a child 1 teacher might seem like a whole army.. but still – from 3 to 35...?)

The 'red' school building with all '35' teachers standing in front of it 

The name of my principal is Mr. S D Sharma.
(The principal of the school is Mohanji)

He is a learned prison.
(Hmm... we can debate whether this one is a ‘careless slip’ on the child’s part, or a deep philosophical comment on the education system...)

(Don't misunderstand the intention here, the humour is directed only at our toothless sytem...)


The student had just mugged up the essay from a guide book and reproduced it. In this case I was not that uncomfortable about the student scoring well, because an essay does not necessarily have to be factually correct. The fact that the student had interpreted the question correctly and written these few lines almost flawlessly was an achievement in itself!

The sad thing is - that students who have the ability to mug up and write so much, have actually not been taught anything ‘real’ – not even to substitute ‘red’ with ‘blue’ where needed!

Well, I also started to understand what these tests are about. I realized every English test here is basically a test of pattern recognition for them - irrespective of class, topic etc. The children recognise that whenever the paper contains one particular series of ‘symbols’, they need to put down another fixed set of symbols as the correct response. For example, I might go and tell the kids that they would see this sequence in the exams:

“Quadrile Gryphon advise Jabberwocky?”

They should recognise this sequence, and put down the sequence “Gryphon gobbledegook advised Jabberwocky” in response. And that is what the brighter ones will do. Reproduce it unquestioningly, without deciphering anything at all in the jumble of symbols, let alone comprehending the ‘meaning’ of a particular group of symbols... 

So much for language teaching...

But despite everything, the situation is not hopeless. Sanjay, who has started teaching just a few weeks ago and is yet to settle down into the indifferent and apathetic attitude that prevails, declares his intent of at least seeing to it that by the end of the term all the kids know their alphabet. A noble thought, and I hope he is able to do some good to some batches of students before the systemic apathy catches up.

Incidentally, one of the best answers that I saw to the “What should we hope for the future?” question was: “The should we hope for our future.” MS Word might look down on this sentence and mark it with a green squiggly line... But think of this - this kid had actually figured out some rules for himself – he had some idea of the general ‘form’ the answer to this question should take! 

Definitely, that infused me with a bit of hope...


I originally ended Part 2 of my Bhatiwara chronicles here, but a friend who read it criticised me for sounding too much like the media - sensationalising without taking responsibility. Well, while this may be somewhat true, I can't do anything much at this point - except declare that my intent is to try and bring in change - and invite ideas and discussions for the same.


I am not sure what could be done - need specific ideas. I dn't know how much longer the present class 8 batch will be there. But for the next batch of class 7 and 8 students (present 6 and 7), is there any way we can help ensure that at least 80% of students do not leave the school without learning to read at least one language with comprehension? 


I am going to try very hard to do that...