People

Ebenezer’s dream project takes wing

Even as he was approaching the end of his innings as principal of Bangalore’s Bishop Cotton Boys School (estb. 1865), commonly acknowledged as one of the country’s top-ranked K-XII schools, Dr. Abraham Ebenezer had set the ball rolling for promotion of the Ebenezer International School, Bangalore (EISB), an ambitious project which promises to set new standards and benchmarks for the growing number of international schools in Bangalore and India.

Now having retired as principal of Bishop Cotton on May 31 after a 13-year term during which student enrollment more than doubled from 2,500 to 5,500, Ebenezer is working round the clock with characteristic energy, to ready EISB to receive its first contingent of 600 K-VIII students on June 4 next year. "EISB is the first initiative of the Abraham Memorial Trust (AMT) registered in 2000 with the objective of establishing education centres — primary, secondary and tertiary including community schools — across the country. The trust which has a corpus of Rs.1 crore will provide scholarships for higher education and offer aid for medical care to the aged and victims of natural disasters," says Ebenezer.

And given that EISB is the first major project of AMT, Ebenezer is sparing no effort to get the project off the ground as per schedule. Construction of the school has already commenced on a 22.5 acre site contiguous to Bangalore’s famous Electronic City.

Inevitably, given that several true-blue international day-cum-residential schools with five-star infrastructure have already planted their flags on the peripheries of Bangalore, Ebenezer has an ambitious agenda to match, if not best them. "The campus will comprise 13 main buildings, each with distinctive design and character. Every classroom will open out into a garden and courtyard and the school will offer an olympic size swimming pool, a sports stadium and a 1,000-seat auditorium. For day-scholars we will commission best 20-seater buses with modern safety features and commuting time will not exceed 50 minutes from any part of Bangalore. And for our 300 girl and boy boarders we will provide two and three-share suites instead of the traditional dormitories which will be supplemented by excellent dining and sports and games facilities," says Ebenezer who adds that EISB has already generated great enthusiasm with over 700 admission enquiries received by the management.

For the construction of this state-of-the-art international school affiliated with the Delhi-based CISCE (Council for Indian School Certificate Examinations) and IBO (International Baccalaureate Organisation), Geneva, the trust has budgeted a handsome Rs.42 crore with provision for more if required. "While facilitative infrastructure is important, the character of a school is defined by its leadership and teachers. We have already received over 100 applications from some of the country’s best teachers who want to serve in EISB. From among them we have shortlisted a vice-principal and 20 teachers, and on January 1 we will initiate a global search for a principal," says Ebenezer. Tuition fees have been fixed at Rs.1 lakh per year for day-scholars and Rs.2.25 lakh for boarders in junior school and Rs.1.25 lakh and Rs.2.25 lakh respectively in senior school.

"EISB is the pilot project of my dreams. I plan to promote a chain of high-quality education institutions across India. Once EISB becomes operational next year, other projects will take shape in quick succession," promises Ebenezer, a history alumnus of Mysore and Missouri (USA) universities who began his career as a member of the Karnataka Administrative Service rising to the position of deputy director of collegiate education, before taking charge as principal of Bishop Cotton School in 1993.

Quite obviously his greatest contributions to Indian education are yet to come.

Dilip Thakore (Bangalore)

CIE’s India drive

Last month (September 4), chief executive Ann Puntis and top officials of the University of Cambridge International Examinations (CIE), the world’s largest provider (across 150 countries) of international qualifications, notably IGCSE for 14-19 year-olds, flew into Delhi to chair the first ever ‘Global Best Practice with Cambridge’ seminar.

"We want to build on our network through joint endeavour and vision, harness expertise by sharing experience in a practical way, engage in two-way exchanges with schools in this region and support teacher professionalism for the benefit of students and education," Puntis announced to more than 350 teachers, principals and educationists from across south Asia at the conference.

Acknowledging India’s growing importance in world affairs, CIE will introduce ‘India studies’ from the next academic year in its syllabuses. "India has become important for the world to know and we have an international team of educationists from UK, India and Singapore preparing the curriculum for this subject," says Puntis, an alumnus of Cardiff and Cambridge universities and former teacher and school principal who signed up with University of Cambridge Local Examinations in 1977.

With educational and cultural cooperation between India and UK warming up following the annual summits of the prime ministers of the two countries, Puntis’ high profile visit offering CIE’s thoroughly tested teaching-learning best practices is being interpreted as yet another effort in intensifying education links between the two countries.

CIE’s flagship international IGCSE syllabus launched in 1985 covering a span of 60 subjects is taught in over 4,000 schools worldwide, tests a wide range of student ability levels while offering flexibility. Though there is a stringent process for schools to affiliate with CIE — criteria include adequate number of qualified teachers, physical infrastructure and labs etc — a growing number of schools in India, especially the new genre of international schools, are signing up for the IGCSE programme. "Being a not-for-profit organisation, our aim is to maximise the number of schools affiliated with CIE to provide high-value qualifications at a good price. Our revenue is invested in administration of current assessments and development of education and examination systems," says Puntis.

CIE’s teacher training programme is another important service delivered worldwide by the organisation. Its two-year-old international primary programme for students aged four-11 is yet another success story in the making and is designated to link seamlessly with the Cambridge Checkpoint programme leading to the IGCSE and later the Cambridge A levels. "There is so much excitement in terms of creativity, energy, entrepreneurship and partnerships in the contemporary world. Education supports development and CIE supports education because it is today’s children who will shape the outcomes of the 21st century," says Puntis.

Autar Nehru (New Delhi)

Religion scientist

For the last six years, Kala Shreen, a sociology lecturer at M.O.P. Vaishnav College for Women in Chennai has immersed herself in ethnographic studies of several communities of Tamil Nadu, their religious beliefs and practices. She has researched the role of religion and the temple in the social life of the Nattukotai Chettiar community in particular, with special focus on their age-old traditions and practices.

Recently she was awarded a research grant of Rs.1.5 lakh ($ 2,850) by the US-based Society for Scientific Study of Religion (SSSR) for her research paper ‘Temple as an arbiter: The Nattukotai Chettiar Case’ which explains the pivotal role of the temple in resolving social issues in this community. The award also includes an invitation to present a paper at the annual conference of SSSR to be held in October this year in Portland, Oregon.

The objective of SSSR, established in 1949 by scholars in religion and social science, is to stimulate and exchange research data relating to religious institutions and practices. Shreen is the first Indian invited to present a paper at its annual conference. "The Nattukotai Chettiar community originates from Chettinad and other remote villages in Tamil Nadu, but many of its members live in the cities. I did an empirical study on how this community resolves social issues through temple priests and thus maintains social cohesion," she says.

According to Shreen, this study elucidates upon an important duty of a religious order which is to exercise social control and work for the collective good of society. "It shows how this community continues to maintain its links with its traditional temples, despite dispersal and migration. Every Nattukotai Chettiyar family is registered with the temple and is bound to abide by its rules," explains Shreen, an English literature graduate of Madras University and sociology postgrad of Morgan State University, Baltimore, USA, who also has a Ph D from Madras University.

Shreen’s innovative bent of mind led her to start an elective course in ‘visual sociology’ at M.O.P. Vaishnav in 2005, for media students. "The purpose of the course is to enable students to capture important social rituals on camera and to sensitise them to the cultural and social mores of people and communities they project," she says. Her 40-minute documentary film, Little Traditions, an anthropological study which throws light on arcane customs and religious practices of obscure communities in Tamil Nadu, was screened at Rice University in Houston and at Queen’s University, Ireland.

Encouraged by the success of her first docu-film, Shreen plans to reach out to larger audiences. "I want to screen docu-films in education channels on television. I have already prepared screen plays that are academic, informative and address social issues," says Shreen, who roams tirelessly in far- flung villages for an insider’s perspective on esoteric religious and social practices.

Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)

Srinidhi Raghavendra (Bangalore)