Paul Regan is founder-headmaster of the greenfield Oaktree International School (OIS), Kolkata. OIS is east India’s first (class VI-XII) school affiliated with the International Baccalaureate Organisation (IBO), Geneva, the high-end schools examination board which has 2,815 schools worldwide affiliated with it.
Newspeg. Sited on a 30-acre campus in Diamond Harbour on the outskirts of Kolkata, OIS is a candidate school for the IB diploma programme which it will offer to class XI-XII students. Come September, this state-of-the art globally-benchmarked school will admit its first batch of class VI-XI students and will gradually grow to its full enrolment of 650 day and boarding students instructed by 43 teachers.
Conceptualised and commissioned as a fully-fledged international school, OIS is also authorised to teach the IB middle years programme (MYP, class VI-X) curriculum and has also applied for affiliation with the UK-based Cambridge International Examinations to offer its International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) curriculum to class IX-X students.
Genesis. Promoted by businessmen Rishab Kajaria and Aditya Kumar, fellow students of Warwick University (UK), under the aegis of EducoVenture Pvt. Ltd, the high-powered board of OIS is chaired by Dr. David Wilkinson, founder headmaster of the Mahindra United World College, Mulshi (near Pune) — India’s first IB school (estb. 1997). Construction of OIS will be completed by September.
Direct talk. “Oaktree will be different from other local schools in the experience and scope of its faculty, commitment to international values, high standards of pastoral care, university guidance programme, wide range of co-curricular activities, and international curricula, including Cambridge IGCSE and the IB. The curriculum and experience at Oaktree will truly prepare students to become global citizens,” promises Regan, an alumnus of Nottingham University and SOAS (School of African and Oriental Studies), UK, who served as principal/headmaster of international schools in Kenya, Ukraine, and Bosnia, before taking charge as founder head of OIS last August.
Tuition fees. Vary between Rs.3-7 lakh annually while boarding fees will be approx. Rs.2.5 lakh per year.
Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata)