Finding an ‘international school’ for our child

An ‘international school’ opened its branch in our neighborhood a decade ago. Our child was born around the same time. Things couldn’t have been better as living on the city’s outskirts, my wife and I had reservations about sending our child to the so-called best schools at the other end of town. We had a lesser inclination to pay hefty donation or put the child who is yet to start formal education through a rigorous selection procedure such schools demanded.

During the orientation session, the management told parents about the ‘international level’ of education that the school provides at a reasonable fee. It sounded too good to be true. When D-day arrived, we had an ‘interaction’ with the principal and our three-yearold son was admitted.

We were told the school followed the activity-based Montessori system for kindergarten. We soon realised that “the more things change, the more they stay the same”. We were told to buy books and stationery worth thousands from a makeshift shop in the school. The Montessori system was a gimmick, it was the regular classroom system with the school bag weighing over 5kg and the regular homework. The uniform was unsuitable for the hot and humid weather of the region but was followed as it had been decided by the head office.

Years went by and we thought it would develop into a fine institution. But the good teachers that make an institution great left for greener pastures. Every year new ones were recruited. Teachers were overworked and underpaid. The number of students increased and the school started hiking the fee by 5-10-15% a year. Gradually, it became the top school in town, albeit only in fee!

The school turned out to be a fertile ground for promoting coaching academies. Teachers rushed through the syllabus with no emphasis on learning. Art and craft was for parents, it seemed, as we ran arranging for tidbits and doing assignments instead of them being done in class.

The school was ‘international’ only in name and fee not in terms of infrastructure, facilities, education or outlook. No parent teacher association was formed nor was there any record of where the huge amount collected was spent. The principal was without any real powers and the management smart enough to keep a distance from parents.

The management kept good ties with the political party in power and proudly displayed it by way of photos of directors with leaders in the reception area. The school was conscious of its duty to make children responsible citizens, hence it regularly sought money for charity and celebrated green days except that it failed to practise these values when it came to reusing textbooks as these were changed every year, harming the environment and wasting money.

The parents, who were fed up, formed an association and complained to the CBSE, state education authorities, even to the Prime Minister but the school being a national chain with good ties across the political spectrum, wriggled out. I’ve heard from friends that things aren’t much different in other schools in the city.

Our dream to educate our child in an institution that lives the values it propounds is well and truly over though the war for securing parents’ rights is on. But by leaving the education sector open to the whims of the private sector to exploit without any effective control, hasn’t the government left our children exposed to machinations of profit-hungry corporates masquerading as educationists?

THE SCHOOL WAS ‘INTERNATIONAL’ ONLY IN NAME AND FEE NOT IN TERMS OF INFRASTRUCTURE, FACILITIES, EDUCATION OR OUTLOOK