I'm very excited to begin our week at the host school, Vidhyalakshmi School! The school is located near the rural village of Chennangkuppam in the northern part of the Vellore District in Tamil Nadu. We are staying in a hotel in Vellore and making the hour long commute through the countryside and small villages to reach the school. Chennangkuppam, like many of the villages across India, are primarily agriculturally based. Small dairy farms, crops such as rice and sugar cane seem dominant in this region. The staple of the southern Indian diet is rice which differs from northern India, which is more wheat based. In India, private schools are growing quickly, with approximately 40% of schools operating privately. Schools subscribe to a variety of different curricula, some of them following a set of national standards and others following a curriculum from a particular state. Other schools follow an international curriculum. Vidhyalakshmi actually has two completely separate schools on its campus, one operating under the Central Board Standards in Education (C.B.S.E.) the other follows the state board. Both schools are managed by a headmaster titled Correspondent, Shri, S. Ashok Khumar. The Central Board school charges a higher tuition and has more resources for its students. Both schools exhibited a very positive atmosphere, the students were very happy to be there and our visit was apparently a highlight of their school year. Each day, school begins with an assembly of the entire student body. Students sing the school song and the Indian national anthem. Announcements about special activities are made at this gathering and student birthdays are recognized. The activity serves to create a feeling of school unity. This is a formal event. Students are arranged by class in military-style formation for the duration. This is a regular part of the school day at all of the Indian schools that I visited during the TGC program.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
ThIs website is not an official U.S. Department of State website. The views and information presented are the grantee's own and do not represent Teacher's for Global Classrooms, IREX, or the U.S. Department of State.
Archives
August 2017
Categories |