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Choosing a school is so difficult these days. How do I choose a school?“, remarked my colleague. She was sharing her experiences on visit to a school fair over the weekend.  It is that time of the year when parents are busy picking the school they would like to have their child admitted.. We then had  a discussion on CBSE/ICSE, About the international schools that have come up and about the rising education costs. The next academic year is still 6-7 months away, but schools start the admission process early in the year. Let’s see some facts related to private education system in India.

  • Parents want their kids to get the best education possible
  • Indian educational institutions are not among the front ranking institutions in the world, though Indians students have done brilliantly outside India and have top positions in many organizations.
  • The number of education boards in the country has increased in the past decade, resulting in more options, but at the same time more stress, for already anxious parents. Gone are the days when a parent had just schools of state board or the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) or  Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) to choose from. Today, there is a wide range of options, including schools following the The International Baccalaureate (IB)/International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) curricula.
  • Every school promises an education system, which provides an all-round  holistic education excellent infrastructure giving a positive and challenging environment for children to develop their natural talents. Children are encouraged to be creative, independent, inquisitive, and explorative. But number of schools are mushrooming? Teachers quality is debatable, and attrition rate is High. My friend’s daughter had 3 teachers in an year!
  • Education has become expensive. In our earlier article Rising Education costs!  we had shared the findings of Associated Chamber of Commerce & Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) survey How much does a school education for a child costs in 2011? Rs. 94,000 annually for single child on school education. This includes  fees,  books,transport, stationery, uniform,  educational trips,building fund, extra tuition and extracurricular activities. Break up of cost give The minimum outgo for an ICSE /CBSE school is Rs 50,000 to 1 lakh . For International curricula IGSCE/IB, it goes upto few lakhs. This is not just a one-time commitment, it is rather a recurring expense and it keeps rising year after year. Majority of parents spend on average more than Rs 18 lakh-20 lakh in raising a child by the time their teen graduates from high school.
  • Education in school is just not sufficient. People are enrolling their children in tuition classes, foundation courses(for IIT starts from class 7 at many places)
  • Other than school education a child goes for extra-curricular classes such as dance,music,playing musical instrument, playing games like badminton, football,cricket. And the fees of such classes are also rising.
  • If you are worrying about this sharp rise in school education expense, there’s a bigger time bomb ticking away. Higher education costs are growing at an even faster rate. Average fees of Engineering course is roughly Rs 6 Lakh today, five years down the line it would be close to double meaning Rs 12 Lakh. In 10 years’ time, it’s likely to cost around Rs 20 Lakh. There is also trend of sending children to abroad for higher studies (even undergraduate). Raising the question of should I save for retirement or higher studies of children.

Choice of Curriculum : ICSE, CBSE, IB, IGCSE or State Board

The debate between concerned parents and educators on whether a CBSE or an ICSE system is better has been going on for years. With the increasing numbers of schools offering the International Baccalaureate, International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) from University of Cambridge International Examinations and the Waldorf system; the debate has widened, providing both stress and options to parents.

Number of Schools offering  ICSE, CBSE, IB, IGCSE or State Board

As per The great Indian education debate(Jul 2013)

  • For CBSE There are 12 million students in 12,504 schools including 1,002 Kendriya Vidyalayas, 1,944 government schools, 8,966 independent schools, 562 Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas and 30 Central Tibetan Schools,
  • ICSE has 1,900 schools in India and about 1,40,878 students (including 232 abroad).
  • Interestingly, players such as IB and IGCSE have also managed to carve a niche for themselves with many schools now catering to the expat and NRI community.Both the international boards came to Indian shores years ago, but in the last five years, the number of schools tying up with them has shot up significantly. While there were a mere eight institutes offering the IB programme in 2000, the number of schools offering IGCSE was so insignificant that the board did not even have records of its presence in India in 2000. However, the scene has significantly changed. Currently there are 197 schools in India offering a Cambridge education, while 99 others impart the Geneva-imported IB programme and Maharashtra, with 109 IB and IGCSE schools, leads the tally, followed by Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.

Curriculum : CBSE, ICSE,IB, IGCSE

CBSE  & ICSE

Both the boards CBSE and ICSE have undergone a significant change over the last 10 years and the focus has shifted from passive learning to learning through experience and experimentation. For both the boards

  • There is recognition by all colleges in India.
  • Good content and books.

But there are slight differences

CBSE

  • The CBSE syllabus is comparatively more rational and scientific in its approach. It has been designed for a specific year and is divided into various segments and every segment is given a specific number of periods so that it can be completely and thoroughly taught in one year. As a result, the CBSE system enables the teachers to prepare the teaching of various subjects in a coherent manner. Moreover, this system helps the students allocate time to different subjects in a balanced way
  • Focus on Science and Mathematics as well as application based subjects. This helps students for engineering and medical entrance exams.
  • Easy to find tutors, books  for all classes.
  • Continuous And Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE), a new system of education implemented by CBSE for students of sixth to tenth grades. It removes the marking system and introduces grading system based on a series of curricular and extracurricular activities.
  • Numerous talent search examinations and scholarship exams such as SSTSE, NSEB, NSEC etc held at local and national level base their content on CBSE syllabus.
  • Some students may find ICSE syllabus vast as ICSE have more syllabus and subjects. Sixth grade ICSE student will face 12-13 subject examinations while CBSE student will face on 5-6 subject examinations.
ICSE
  • Syllabus followed by the ICSE board is more comprehensive and complete, which gives all fields with equal importance. (ex: science, maths, language, arts, home science, agriculture, fashion design,cookery).
  • Overall syllabus (like languages) of ICSE will give slight upper hand in english to their students. This will help them in some exams which are based on English. But then one has to read Shakespeare 🙂
  • Class X exams have entire year portion unlike CBSE which has portion for only second semester.

International Curricula : IB and IGCSE

  • IGCSE and IB programmes are more practical and application-based.
  • It provide students an opportunity to select courses according to their interest in the subjects of science, humanities, languages, mathematics. The courses also provide them an opportunity to mix these subjects with components of fine arts, visual arts, theatre, technical drawing, music, film making, community service, etc.
  • Emphasis is laid on developing critical thinking, analytical skills, communication skills, investigative abilities, problem solving techniques, team work, independent research and other qualities valued by all international universities.
  • They have a broader spectrum of subjects that lead to all-round development and are more challenging than Indian educational boards and test student knowledge, not their memory and speed.
  • The IGCSE/IB programme has worldwide status and credibility. Many international universities prefer students trained in the thinking style of education. International programmes give students an edge during the college admission process.

CONS

  • In the international school system, a student may select the science he wants to study. But entry to science-based degree programmes in India mandates physics, chemistry and mathematics for engineering; physics, chemistry and biology for medicine, dentistry, pharmacy and related fields like physiotherapy, etc. Though Indian universities accept the IB /IGCSE for entry into degree programmes, but students find it tough to get the high scores in order to meet the competitive selection process
  • The timing of the Indian entrance examinations, in the month of May, clashes with the final examinations of most international boards. Results also come late.
  • The International boards are expensive (around 5 lakh+) compared to CBSE/ICSE schools.

Points to consider if you have a transferable job

  • If the parents have a transferable job and the child has to change schools frequently, they should ideally opt for an ICSE or CBSE school.
  • If job involves transfer to small cities or towns(technically called tier-II ) one should ideally opt for a CBSE school. If the transfer is restricted to metros or urban areas, parents can opt for ICSE or a CBSE School. The logic is that ICSE schools are still a rare concept in smaller towns of the country
  • If parents have a job with prospects of overseas postings.Then people opt for IGSCE (International General Certificate of Secondary Education) board or  The International Baccalaureate (IB) board

Website of the Various Boards

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Curriculum has developed, examination system has become comprehensive, classes with less students , better student to teacher ratio, parents totally dedicated to their one or two kids. There is Google  and good websites like khanacademy.org  to help out the kids. But has the education system really changed? Is it still not too much, rote based and exam oriented. Are we still not chasing marks? She fumbled on Karan Johar’s Koffee with Karan show when she was asked  “Who the President of India was?” Ever since then, Alia Bhatt has constantly been at the receiving at innumerable memes and jokes. But then Alia Bhatt took a potshot at herself by acting in Genius of the Year and showed how one can be caught in Black hole information paradox. How did you choose school for your child? What did you focus on? How much weight-age did you give to the Board?

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