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.

The Journey of the Paper Plane: Stop # 1, Bhatiwara

The buck never reaches here

Well – the first month of my six month sabbatical is over. I had promised myself that before the month ended, I would kick off some ‘real’ action. And, well, it could not have got more ‘real’ than my mind-boggling journey to Bhatiwara, the adivasi village where I had gone to flag off my journey to what I loosely, somewhat stupidly, and totally inadequately termed as ‘understanding rural education’. Basically, I just want to see first-hand what our education system is meting out to those children who live and pass away without ever coming in the radar of us ‘city-folk’ – the children living in the remotest parts of Bharat, which India is only vaguely aware of...

Bhatiwara is 25 km or so from Seoni, which is roughly midway between Nagpur and Jabalpur. And that is about the best I can do in terms of coordinates. Bhatiwara does not exist on any map of Madhya Pradesh that I could find online. A Google Search for ‘Bhatiwara’ asks me, rather condescendingly, ‘Did you mean Bhanwara?’... I feel like being condescending right back, and say, ‘NO. I meant Bhatiwara, all right.’.... but Google thumbs its nose at me and refuses to give me that option. I then try ‘Bhatiwada’ .... Google retorts with, ‘Did you mean Khatiwada..?’ ... and proceeds to give me a list of people with the surname ‘Bhatiwada’ on Facebook. I give up....

Why Bhatiwara? Mainly because it is one of the MOST backward and inaccessible areas that I am personally aquainted with, but also because we have a base there – having acquired an expanse of wasteland there last year, which Sudarshan is now trying to convert into a model organic farm, Udayan... and, I think, to his credit and that of his team, succeeding...

So, when I decided to start my ill defined and ill planned journey of understanding the problem of education in remote rural areas, and the accompanying personal ‘soul search’, this seemed to be the most natural place to start.

This was my third visit to the farm, and Bhatiwara. It was the second time I actually stayed on the farm, and the first time I stayed on the farm ‘alone’. By ‘alone’ here, I mean with the local village people, with no family member or friend accompanying me.

The two days I spent by myself in Bhatiwara provoked colossal amounts of thought, which I intend putting down lest they get obscured. I plan to share various thoughts that occupied my mind during the trip – how bad really is the state of education there, how does one deal with marginalisation - and even before that, whether to deal with marginalisation. (Yes, you heard right - that was a real question in my mind.) And of course, share anecdotes and lessons learnt from the journey. If in the process some discussions and ideas are generated on how to put Bhatiwara and other such forgotten places on the map of India, and the map of education - great.. !

So... here goes.. the Bhatiwara diaries – in episodic form...

2 + 1 = 0

As I mentioned, my main reason for spending time at Bhatiwara this time was to spend time at the school and ‘understand rural education’. See for myself exactly how sad is the state of education there.. well, what can I say, except that I went expecting the worst - and well, I was not at all disappointed in that – saw some really depressing stuff.

Juloos's 'open' school

The Bhatiwara school was set up in 2001, prior to which the village kids of all ages just gathered around under a largish tree under the tutelage of a single ‘masterji’. Now there is a primary and middle school there, with about 250 students in all. The primary and the middle school each has 2 regular teachers, and 1 ‘para’ teacher.

Initially, my visit generated mild interest among the teachers. Once satisfied that I was not affiliated with any Govt or other agency and was not going to send any report to anybody, they went about their day as usual, leaving me well alone.

The problem is, they left the kids well alone too... I spent the best part of two days in the school. There was not a SINGLE class held. Not one. The kids just come for the mid day meals, and simply go away after that.

On the second day, I got desperate and asked one of the teachers, Bhikamji, to take a class, giving him a ‘I have come from so far just for this...’ spiel. “Class?”, he said, as if I had mentioned some taboo word... and then, resignedly, "Achcha, aap bol rahe hain toh class le hi lete hain..”. He then led me to the room where class 4 and 5 students waited. The girls sat in neat rows, while many of the boys passed time by beating each other up. Anyway, I was relieved that I was finally going to see some action... but nahi... Bhikamji just said some perfunctory words to the class, and left suddenly...leaving me standing in front of the class. Left holding the babies...

After 45 minutes, he reappeared... probably hoping I would have magically vanished during this time... Seeing I was still standing my ground, he wrote a few math problems on the board, and told the class “Yeh ho jaye, toh yeh madam ko dikha dena...” and beat a retreat again.

Well, I struggled for the next 1.5 hours, realising that even most of the class 5 kids did not know how to read numbers, order numbers, subtract or multiply... I had a tough time, trying to teach some of hem the basics – that too in Hindi...

Some of the kids were quite bright, grasping what I said quickly...others struggled, dulled by years of apathy...

As I left the 5^th grade classroom, I noticed the huge poster on the wall behind the teacher’s desk: “SANGHARSH HI JEEVAN KA NAAM HAI”. As if these kids, who are not sure where the next meal is coming from, need any reminding...

The bhatiwara primary school has 2 regular teachers and 1 para teacher. One of the regular teachers it seems only makes a guest appearance once in a while at the school – needless to say, he did not appear once during the time that I was there... I tried talking to some teachers to understand their problems. “We need more teachers...there is too much work...”, all of them said...

2 regular + 1 para teacher for 150 odd kids.... not a bad ratio AT ALL ... but resultant benefits for the kids? 0. Zilch. Cipher.

2 + 1 = 0. 
QED? I hope not....