Against the background of the recently enacted Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (RTE Act), which directs all private unaided schools to provide free education upto 25 percent of class strength to underprivileged children from classes I-VIII, it is important for the future of private schools that they accept this provision of the Act in the interests of nation building, and observe it in letter and spirit.
Alternatively, s.12 of the RTE Act offers private unaided schools an opportunity to exercise the option of providing Equal Opportunity Schools. The Indus Trust has already established an internationally benchmarked Equal Opportunity School on its Indus International School campus in Bangalore, and is in the process of promoting similar schools contiguous to Indus International schools in Hyderabad and Pune.
We believe in inclusive and equal opportunity schooling because the purpose of education must be to address the challenges of sustainability such as climate change, sharing of dwindling resources, poverty, illiteracy, religious fundamentalism, and rising greed and corruption. Apart from being centres of academic excellence, schools should equip students emoti-onally and spiritually to become agents of change for transformation of society. For this, development of English, science and math, computer literacy and leadership skills is absolutely necessary.
Our neighborhood Equal Opportunity School has been promoted on the premise that in a world that is getting flatter by the day, there’s no place for different sets of curriculum and technology for the privileged and underprivileged. They have to be equal and affordable for the underprivileged as well.
Therefore, the purpose and rationale of Indus Equal Opportunity schools is to provide the same quality education as high-end mainstream schools at a fraction of the cost. Through sharing of land area and other costs with the parent school, K-12 education whose cost varies between $10-$40 (Rs.450-1,800) per day in mainstream schools, is provided in our Equal Opportunity School at 15-30 cents (Rs.7-14) per day! Sharing of overheads apart, this has been made possible by using low-cost building materials, reducing capital expenditure, number of teachers employed and slashing operating expenses by 70 percent.
Indus Equal Opportunity schools provide education from class I-XII and follow the state board and/or CBSE syllabus. However, delivery of the chosen curriculum is based on international systems, processes, benchmarks and best practices tried and tested in the neighbouring parent school to enable Equal Opportunity students to compete for admission into the best colleges and universities in India and abroad.
The enrolment ceiling of Indus Equal Opportunity schools is 600 students and classes are conducted in two shifts, to slash infrastructure and teacher costs. Moreover, we ensure that empathetic teachers are selected from the same socio-economic milieu as students, but they are trained in international practices and subject knowledge at our in-house Indus Training and Research Institute.
As in the parent school, the entire campus of our Equal Opportunity schools is wifi enabled, with all children from class I onwards being provided with laptops, to enable them to become IT literate, lifelong learners. As in the parent institution, there is considerable emphasis on self-study and peer learning with teachers playing the role of facilitators, teaching what Google cannot teach.
To involve parents with the education of their children, they are obliged to pay an all-inclusive tuition fees of Rs.5,000 per annum, the price of a nutritious daily lunch included. However those who cannot pay, have the option of paying less or availing micro finance loans arranged by the Indus Trust. To further ensure the involvement of parents with their children’s education, adult literacy programmes are conducted for them in resource centres close to their homes.
It’s important to note that our Equal Opportunity schools are financially self-sustaining. The only initial grants they need are two acres of land and funding of phase 1 infrastructure which could be installed for Rs.60 lakh. This model is very attractive for state governments as well because the per student subsidy being currently provided will cover operational costs.
The beneficial fallout of Equal Opportunity schools for society is immense. They provide high quality internationally benchmarked K-12 education at affordable cost to the poor. Moreover, whereas under s.12 of the RTE Act, the education of poor children in private unaided schools is until class VIII, in Equal Opportunity schools it continues until class XII.
Looking to the future, it’s clear to me that competition between nations will soon transform into competition between their education systems. As citizens of India we are all responsible for nation-building. Our focus must, therefore be on how we can make Indian society prosperous, sustainable and peaceful. While we should repose trust in the judiciary to strike down the Orwellian clauses of the RTE Act, let us focus on how we can make the RTE work, and on how we can go beyond RTE. That is leadership. That is citizenship. That’s nation building.
(Lt. Gen. (Retd) Arjun Ray, PVSM, VSM, is chief executive of the Indus Trust, Bangalore)