Weeklong trip to pick up mentoring techniques practised by Asian neighbour.
Principal Rajani Shekhar of DBMS English School (left) and her Hill Top School counterpart Puneeta B Chouhan at the news meet in Jamshedpur on Friday. Picture by Bhola Prasad
Two well-known principals of Jamshedpur will visit China next week to pick up new techniques in teaching methods.
Principals Rajani Shekhar and Puneeta B. Chouhan of DBMS English School in Kadma and Hill Top School in Telco, respectively, will visit Kunming in Yunnan, China, from April 23 to 30 as part of an exchange programme initiated by the Chinese consulate in Calcutta.
Apart from these two, principals of nine other schools mostly from Calcutta will be a part of the exchange programme.
Both Shekhar and Chouhan, who interacted with the media on Friday on the campus of the Kadma school, said they were looking forward to lot of learning in the field of education during their China trip.
As China and India are the two most populous countries, there would be similarities in dealing with children as schools in both countries have numerous students, they said. The Chinese Consulate is also looking forward to better ties with India through educational exchange programmes.
"We will try to gauge the best learning methods practised by schools in China and implement them here in our schools. I believe India and China have similarities in teaching methods and administration as we deal with many children," said Shekhar.
Chouhan added that they would love to know how Chinese schools train students in sports. "China has an exemplary record of winning Olympic medals. They excel in sports as they start young. We would love to learn how they train their kids in sports."
Both ICSE affiliated schools in the past have been a part of the UK-India Education Research Initiative and Global School Programmes under British Council.
The principals had visited UK schools earlier. "We did implement things we learnt from UK, such as teaching English and promoting creativity and group work, but schools in the West have very few students. The maximum may be around 500. Here a school has 3,000 children. So the administration differs," Shekhar added.
Originally published in The Telegraph, April 22, 2017.