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By Rajkamal Rao
Go back to Education
Once you select a curriculum and school type, you will then select a specific school. Here again, the choices can be mind boggling. Unlike in the US, there is no correlation between an area of the city and the quality of schools. That is, you don’t get into a good school simply by buying (or renting) a home within the school district’s boundaries. Just about every school under likely consideration of the returning family is a private institution and so, just like with US private schools, where you live does not matter.
But US private schools are ranked by various media organizations (Newsweek, US News) which may help narrow your choices down. In India, however, there are no reliable rankings of schools, so the best you can get is a word of mouth recommendation from a friend or family member saying something as cursory as, “School ABC is very good”. Probe further and you will find that the opinion doesn’t drill down into anything meaningful.
One trick we have used to evaluate a school is to ask other parents (who have had their children in a particular school for at least a year) this question:
"How well did the school evaluate your kid at the end of his/her school year?"
The subjective side humanizes the student beyond a set of numbers and certificates. One international school's report card on an elementary student looks like a detailed performance evaluation of a career executive - with descriptive language summarizing the child's attributes. A child is graded across all of these dimensions:
Co-Curricular Evaluation: Reading, Library Education, Art, PE, Indian Music, Dance/Drama, Work Experience and Western Music. Each of these categories has four sub-categories (for example, Reading breaks down into Interest, Imagination, Verbal Skills and Group Activity).
Personality Development: Courtesy, Confidence, Care of Belongings, Neatness, Regularity and Punctuality, Initiative, Sharing and Caring, Respect of Others' Property and Self-Discipline.
Think about it. If the school's annual report card describes strengths and weaknesses of your child exactly as you know them to be, the school is good. If the best that a school's report card can do is to measure your child in numbers - as in marks on exams - you may want to continue looking at other school options.
COST
Cost could be another consideration that can help in school choice. The problem is that the cost of schools varies widely by type, curricula and city.
Below is a breakdown of a quote from an International School in Bangalore, for the 2011-12 academic year, for Grade 5 offering the CBSE curriculum. This school was established in 2007 and has a boarding option (which is not priced below).
One time fees = INR 70,000. (Breakdown: Registration - INR 10,000; Admission - INR 20,000; Activity Fee - INR 40,000)
Annual tuition fees = INR 85,000.
Transportation = Up to 15 KMS = INR 15,000; Above 15 KMS - INR 25,000.
A more well-established international school in the Rajajinagar area of Bangalore, also CBSE affiliated (although switching affiliation to the CISCE starting 2013) quoted the following - note that all amounts are in USD!
Admission Fee: $700 (one time payment)
Deposit: $200 (one time payment)
Annual Tuition Fee: $2,600
Stationery Fee: $300
TOTAL: $ 3,800 (about INR 1,90,000).
The costs of school uniforms and transportation are extra. This school is known to follow the airline pricing model where a passenger is not aware of the fare the person sitting across the aisle paid for the same trip. It is rumored that this school lowers the fee to about half once the NRI child is “local” for 2 academic years.
A top-end international school in Bangalore is rumored to charge as much as INR 500,000, plus boarding expenses. The NRI students in this school are joined by children of wealthy business people or political leaders - creating a highly elite (and some say, spoilt) school environment. Children can be found driving expensive BMWs and Mercedes Benzes near the school yard - and most of them are under-age! Students say that social ills that plague some western schools are not uncommon here including drugs and alcohol.
Go back to Education
Once you select a curriculum and school type, you will then select a specific school. Here again, the choices can be mind boggling. Unlike in the US, there is no correlation between an area of the city and the quality of schools. That is, you don’t get into a good school simply by buying (or renting) a home within the school district’s boundaries. Just about every school under likely consideration of the returning family is a private institution and so, just like with US private schools, where you live does not matter.
But US private schools are ranked by various media organizations (Newsweek, US News) which may help narrow your choices down. In India, however, there are no reliable rankings of schools, so the best you can get is a word of mouth recommendation from a friend or family member saying something as cursory as, “School ABC is very good”. Probe further and you will find that the opinion doesn’t drill down into anything meaningful.
One trick we have used to evaluate a school is to ask other parents (who have had their children in a particular school for at least a year) this question:
"How well did the school evaluate your kid at the end of his/her school year?"
The subjective side humanizes the student beyond a set of numbers and certificates. One international school's report card on an elementary student looks like a detailed performance evaluation of a career executive - with descriptive language summarizing the child's attributes. A child is graded across all of these dimensions:
Co-Curricular Evaluation: Reading, Library Education, Art, PE, Indian Music, Dance/Drama, Work Experience and Western Music. Each of these categories has four sub-categories (for example, Reading breaks down into Interest, Imagination, Verbal Skills and Group Activity).
Personality Development: Courtesy, Confidence, Care of Belongings, Neatness, Regularity and Punctuality, Initiative, Sharing and Caring, Respect of Others' Property and Self-Discipline.
Think about it. If the school's annual report card describes strengths and weaknesses of your child exactly as you know them to be, the school is good. If the best that a school's report card can do is to measure your child in numbers - as in marks on exams - you may want to continue looking at other school options.
COST
Cost could be another consideration that can help in school choice. The problem is that the cost of schools varies widely by type, curricula and city.
Below is a breakdown of a quote from an International School in Bangalore, for the 2011-12 academic year, for Grade 5 offering the CBSE curriculum. This school was established in 2007 and has a boarding option (which is not priced below).
One time fees = INR 70,000. (Breakdown: Registration - INR 10,000; Admission - INR 20,000; Activity Fee - INR 40,000)
Annual tuition fees = INR 85,000.
Transportation = Up to 15 KMS = INR 15,000; Above 15 KMS - INR 25,000.
A more well-established international school in the Rajajinagar area of Bangalore, also CBSE affiliated (although switching affiliation to the CISCE starting 2013) quoted the following - note that all amounts are in USD!
Admission Fee: $700 (one time payment)
Deposit: $200 (one time payment)
Annual Tuition Fee: $2,600
Stationery Fee: $300
TOTAL: $ 3,800 (about INR 1,90,000).
The costs of school uniforms and transportation are extra. This school is known to follow the airline pricing model where a passenger is not aware of the fare the person sitting across the aisle paid for the same trip. It is rumored that this school lowers the fee to about half once the NRI child is “local” for 2 academic years.
A top-end international school in Bangalore is rumored to charge as much as INR 500,000, plus boarding expenses. The NRI students in this school are joined by children of wealthy business people or political leaders - creating a highly elite (and some say, spoilt) school environment. Children can be found driving expensive BMWs and Mercedes Benzes near the school yard - and most of them are under-age! Students say that social ills that plague some western schools are not uncommon here including drugs and alcohol.
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