A school before 2 decades used to be a building with classrooms, staff rooms and a principal’s cabin. There used to be missionary schools, government schools and school run in the name of some trust or a particular philanthropic individuals. Many schools used to propagate religion as they were funded by religious pay someone to do assignment trust, government schools focussed on reaching to grassroots for public programs, education and child development used to be second priority for them.
Schools since last few years are different. Across India we are seeing secular schools becoming more popular than religious charity based school. Government schools are too much involved in election duty for teachers, health drive, food program and various “abhiyans” for government. While they are very good vehicles to drive those benefits to the hinterlands, it is a parents dream that if they earn little more they would send their child to a non-government school.
A modern school is now totally different. It is not merely teaching what is in textbook. It is a thing of past that the curriculum defined by that board it is affiliated to, used to be the only responsibility of the school. A lot of responsibilities have been added. Nothing has been reduced surprisingly.
Today’s school is expected to teach computers. So one full subject added to about 10 years of child’s time with school without any reduction of subject. Earlier one period of PE / PT (physical education or training) used to suffice. Now schools have either one of Yoga, Badminton, Table Tennis, Lawn Tennis, Cricket, edit paper online Skating, Basketball, Football, etc. or even more than these to train students on. There is a company called “Edusports” which teaches sports as a curriculum, about 500 schools are their client imparting sports education to around 4 lakh students across India.
Periods like life skills, library, maths lab, and language lab are part of a high end school’s timetable which gives break to students from the monotony of academic subject periods one after the other.
The number of working days and the number of hours of the school have remained the same and so has been the depth of the academic curriculum. So why has the scenario changed so much?
Indian economy is growing but now the country is developing also. Mere growth would mean increase in incomes of families. But development on the other hand would mean that these income translate in increase in standard of living. The parents are expecting an “all round” development of their child, which something they missed during their childhood. Getting a top score in board exam is not the ONLY priority for the parents. Becoming a good sportsperson, an artist, skilled at technology are few other expectation of parents. Rather than becoming an expert parents are wanting their children to be a great human being.