Holistic development of a child is very important in today’s globalised world, said Rajeev Katyal, Country Director, Global Indian Foundation and GIIS Schools India, at eINDIA 2012
India is globalising very fast. Indians are going abroad and MNCs are coming to India and interacting with each other. This is pointing to an era where India will emerge as a global economic superpower in the years to come. Children of today’s India will lead the effort. And for this they need education in globalised environment.
A global school needs to cater to certain aspects, which makes it the visionary school of future. One such aspect is curriculum, whereby we need to have schools catering to diversified curricula. Second aspect is infrastructure that needs to be not only academic, but one that also caters to co-curricula and global connectivity. Third is holistic development of a child academically, and also support multiple intelligences, and excellence in different areas. Holistic development is a method of looking at a child in multiple dimensions and choosing that dimension in which that child is special and trying to emphasise on that strength in a particular child.
Global education excellence also talks about exchanging information between children in various parts of the world to make them globally aware about the other parts. Global education is about sharing best practices across geographies and involving every stakeholder including teachers, students, parents, media, and society. There are multiple dimensions that need to be focused on when we talk about visionary school in global context. Today, schools emphasise only on CBSE curricula. Many students have full potential and freedom to go to curricula, which are different from Indian curricula like IGCSE curriculum or IB, ICSE. Particularly with international curricula, students get a chance to go abroad and study in foreign universities.
Holistic development of a child is very important in today’s globalised world. A child could be good in academics, sports, communication or creativity. Typically in our schools, we focus on different dimensions of the child’s personality. The schools measure the ability of the child to develop in each of these areas termed as nine gems or nine dimension method where we look at things like values and ethics, leadership development, and sporting excellence to develop a child. So, multi-dimensional development is another aspect of developing global school.
An interesting experiment that the Global Indian International School has done is the global student exchange through videoconferencing. We facilitate monthly interactions with students from Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indore, Surat, and Noida through the videoconferencing method to understand about each other’s countries. For example, students of Noida interacted with the students of Singapore and each presented to the other interacted about transportation system in their respective cities. Students of Noida came to know about Singapore’s transportation system and what they can learn from it. So this kind of student exchange leads to globalised community and develops global culture and etiquette.
Another good practice that GIIS has created all over the world is strengthening of communication between all stakeholders that are important for welfare of a child such as parents, teachers, principals, and administrators. So we have created software, My Global Campus, that provides basic information about assignment, marks, tests, student notificationand also encourages regular feedback and interaction between the parents sitting at home and teacher. This implementation enables 24X7 connect with schools and parents at home. They can remotely track the child’s progress, take feedback from teachers and school. They have become partners in the child’s progress along with the schools.
With all above-mentioned efforts we are creating visionary schools of the global world.
