“A lot of private players have moved into education” – about school in India with Supriya Atal

Supriya Atal is the director of studies at the Bombay International
School in India. She started working in education 15 years ago and
has ever since witnessed the remarkable development of the Indian
education system.. In the podcast “School must go on” Supriya Atal
talks about the role of private players in education in India and
the different curricula at international schools. – Number of
international schools is growing – “Historically, the state has
always tried to manage schooling in most parts of India,” Supriya
Atal explains. Private players saw poor benchmarks and very poor
quality of education and realized that there is a huge opportunity.
“In the last 20 years, a lot of private players have moved into
education in India,” sums up the director of studies. In 2005 there
were only three international schools in Mumbai, while today there
are 50 and the number is still growing. “The parents started
getting aware of the fact that if their children go to an
international school they have greater opportunities,” Supriya Atal
says. “In other aspects the infrastructure in Mumbai has not
changed, but in education there was a huge development.” –
Curricula at international schools – The Cambridge curriculum and
the International Baccalaureate curriculum (IB) are the most
represented in India. “The Cambridge model is economically
extremely attractive,” Supriya Atal explains. It is a very low cost
curriculum, the assessment model is simple, all fees are very cheap
and teacher training is moderately priced, she says. “It’s an easy
and small transition and it’s incredible how beautiful it runs!”
Overall, the Cambridge curriculum works like an autopilot for
schools and teachers and it has a more traditional understanding of
subjects, tests, and skills. “The IB actually defines the purpose
of education as development of the learners’ profile, so basically
working on students' values and attributes,” the education expert
says. In the context of IB, approaches to teaching and learning
(ATL) were formulated. “These approaches have two parts: First, the
approaches to learning skills like self-regulation, communication,
academic writing and research – they call these the 21st century
skills. Beyond that, the approach to teaching defines the
pedagogic. It is basically telling you that in order to develop
these skills in our students we need to have pedagogic skills like
conceptual learning, inquiry based learning, formative assessments
and collaborative platforms,” Supriya Atal explains. “These
approaches are extremely seductive for the teacher, because it's so
exciting to read!” The US curriculum is not as common in India
because it does not have a board exam in 10th grade. “When there is
no top up board exam at grade 10 parents in India will not like it
and will question its validity. It’s hard to break that believe
system,” the director of studies says. “Otherwise, it's an internal
assessment programme, which allows good schools a lot of autonomy
and freedom to really drive contemporary education.” Supriya Atal
also talks about school during and after the pandemic, academic
regression due to school closures, the National Education Policy
2020 in India, the development of state schools and the role of
social aspects in school.