SkillOutlook team had an Email based interaction with Mr. Bharat Goyal, Founder, Director, Bhartiyam International School. We discussed with on various aspects of school education, curriculum, New Education Policy, and COVID 19 impact on school education. Here is the brief of the interaction.
1.The idea behind the inception of the school & how it’s unique from their competitors?
‘Discover Beyond Ordinary’ is the aim of Bhartiyam International School. At Bhartiyam we aim at providing quality education integrated with moral values which would give our students a confidence to stand tall in the world they would step out in. The school emphasizes on imparting education with innovative ideas that can revolutionize the world we live in. At the same time an atmosphere & opportunity is provided, where personality is groomed and potential is completely exposed.
9th July 2012 was the day when Bhartiyam International School started operations. It was a very humble beginning in mid-session with just 74 students.
Bhartiyam International School, has been the torchbearer of progressive change in teaching pedagogy and adoption of technology. This has made the Bhartiyam International School, the most preferred school for the parents of this region.
School has always provided holistic global education to its pupils. It has hosted international students from Germany, Austria from past many years. The school has hosted international outbound program opportunities also for its students.
The handling of pandemic by the school was a milestone in school’s journey. During the lockdown, Bhartiyam International School was the first school in Northern part of the country to start its online classes and with complete schedule. The school had conducted all the events, assemblies, celebrations digitally and with complete involvement of students and parents.
2.How will the curriculum help the students teaching real-world skills?
School was setup with a sole aim to provide the best quality education to the students of the region, upholding the ethics of the profession is another major focus area of the school.
The students of Class 9 & 11 independently host the School Annual Carnival. This gives them an opportunity to plan, manage, present a massive scale event with turnover running over 10Lac Rupees. The students manage the entire show, including sponsorships, advertisements, planning, execution, security, guest invitations etc. At the end of the event they present the books of accounts and completion report to the senior management. This is a one of kind event which is very popular and give students tremendous exposure and management capabilities.
Other than this various small school businesses are initiated by different class students, so as to develop the entrepreneur in them. School also motivates the students to do internships during the summer break, so as to give them better exposure.
BIS, a vibrant learning institution in collaboration with school fraternity aims to imbibe Yoga practice and playing sports in daily routine. We will be providing a tech-savy pursuit of learning by acquainting students with compendious IT skills. Also, to benefit students from a multitude of unique life experiences an International exchange program will be launched by 2020. To sharpen the IQ, Logical and Analytical skills of the students they will be exposed to participate in Olympiads and various prestigious competitions so that at least 50 entrants of Engineering, Medical, CA and Law originate annually.
3.Alumni stories of students if any.
Bhartiyam International School, is just an 8 year old school and our Alumni are poised for great heights, but their journey has just started. So right now we cannot name anyone.
We would like to highlight today school boasts with many awards and accolades to its name and its students achieving heights at various National and International competitions. Our students have secured National and International Rank 1 in many Olympiads, our student Master Rishit Agarwal was selected for YUVIKA (Yuva Vigyanik Karyakram – ISRO – only student from the region). In the very second board exam result of the school our student Kavya Arora of Class 12 secured 99.2% and AIR-4 in the CBSE Class 12th Board exams and this year in 2020 Rishit Agarwal secured 99.6% and AIR -2 in CBSE Class 10th Board exams.
Not only in academic, but the students have earned laurels in the field of sports as well, with 4 boys and 2 girls from our school representing the Udham Singh Nagar District Basketball team. 2 students represented the Uttarakhand State at the National Basketball Championship. Anshu Kumar of our school won the Silver medal at the 400 mt Track event in the State championship.
4.Your thoughts on the NEP?
The NEP is genuine progressive step in the right direction and displays a clear mandate for action. Initiatives such as providing student choice, enhancing focus on basic number and linguistic skills, changing curriculum focus from content to skills, dedication on learning outcomes and experiential learning, recognizing the importance of liberal arts education and providing flexibility in the examination system are extremely appreciated. Long-awaited reforms in teacher education and emphasis on continuous professional development are extremely positive and important.
The success of any policy is based on its implementation, NEP can only be a success when all of India joins the bandwagon. There are countless examples of progressive policies being misinterpreted and distorted at the ground level resulting in an excess of litigation in all realms of education.
5.Your thought on school opening
Reopening of Schools and other educational institutions is around the corner and is an administrative nightmare for many. Resource strain, high student strength and high expectations from parents become the most difficult factors in the preparation for the same.
The most important aspects of reopening include regular disinfection of school building, sanitization protocols of every individual entering the premises, directions & marking for maintaining social distancing inside the school premise. To ensure the above state of the art technology is being implemented like Automatic sanitizer dispensing machine, digital face mask detection, automatic temperature sensors, queue marks etc. Making S.O.Ps for administration, teacher, students and sensitizing them about them is one of the most important steps in reopening of schools.
The stress of implementing a blended offline-online model is extreme, need to ensure that there is seamless transition between online to hybrid model, but there are many factors that are posing a lot of difficulties in its implementation. There is a big challenge to lower down the burden of the teachers in the hybrid teaching model.
6.What precautions are Bhartiyam taking to ensure social distance
During current pandemic, re-opening of school in the phase manner has put pressure on the school management to ensure the safety of students & teacher. Not limited to student & teachers but also parents trust in the school management.
It is the primary responsibility of the school to ensure the social distance and safety of the students. The entire school furniture has been reorganized to ensure social distancing inside the school premise including classrooms.
At Bhartiyam students will be attending classes on alternate days and classes will be held till noon. We ensure the class size will be limited to the certain number of students. We have provided an option of opting for online classes as well, as parents were apprehensive to sent their kids to school.
As far as residential schools are concerned, hostel facilities will be made available to the students who do not have any other option for accommodation.
Schools were also provided with grants to acquire equipment like thermal scans and sanitisers to maintaining a safe and clean environment and regular sanitization is also taken care of looking at the pandemic situation.
7.What & how school is trying to lower down the burden of teachers
We understand that the entire student strength will not be coming to school for offline classes, so there is a big challenge to enable the same offline class to be beamed online otherwise the teachers will have to take the same class twice at different timing for offline and online students separately. This poses increased pressure for teacher wherein they are currently paid less salaries and with increased workload, there is big chance of health risks as well. Not just this stress, the transportation system will also to run in extreme loss with half capacity students boarding at any given time. All these are posing operational problems in front of school administrations, in a country like India where majority of schools are budget schools, with very low tec
