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To return or not, to the home country for the kids’ sake seems to be an eternal dilemma for non-resident parents, especially when it concerns school education, finds Ritusmita Biswas
Amitava Roy, a software engineer in Florida, has recently sent his children to a residential school in Bangalore. Both he and his wife were disturbed with the attitude they were developing due to cultural differences. "I want them to learn Indian values and get familiar with their motherland," Roy says. It has not been an easy decision for them and they miss their children terribly. “But this is a must as this will help my children to grow up with an awareness of their roots,” believes Amitava’s wife Pramita Roy.
Parna Gupta and her husband Manav, on the other hand, are apprehensive about relocating from the US. “Our son is in Class VII and we are worried that he might not be able to cope with the academic pressure in India.”
The educated Indians might be heading for the US, Singapore or other countries abroad, but for the basic education of their children, or get them reared in schools that teach Indian values and follow the Indian system of academics, they seem keen to come back to the country. Be it in the US or Canada or Singapore, many NRI parents are getting increasingly concerned about the formative period in their children’s lives and at times taking drastic measures like relocating or sending the child back to Indian so that they are groomed in the fashion that they were.
In fact, many seem to have a love-hate relationship with the country that they are now staying in. “We love the country for the money, independence that it has given us but at the same time, we also worry constantly about our children and the values they are imbibing. It’s difficult to accept the idea of my 13 year old daughter wanting to go on a date. Maybe it’s the generation gap or maybe it’s the lifestyle that she is exposed to ,” says Sumedha Mohan of California.
“At the end of the day I want her to grow up as mature young women, academically good, strong on values, able to run a family and raise kids. For this I feel that she needs to have Indian roots and get educated in the Indian system. To achieve this, even if I have to go back I am willing to,” she says. Sumedha and her husband have decided that she would return to India and get her daughter admitted in a good school there. What worries her now is whether her daughter will be able to cope with the academic pressure and manage to get admitted to a “brand” school.
Explains Hilda Peacock, principal, La Martiniere for Girls, Kolkata. “This is because the system of education there is very different from our country. We receive students from abroad with glowing recommendations but when they are placed with students of the same grade from India, in most cases they perform miserably. No wonder the Indian parents want to place their kids in our schools as being educated in the same system they realise this is the best that can prepare them to face the competitive global scenario.”
At the same time, recent studies show that an increasing number of Indian students are heading overseas for higher education. Statistics reveal that at present 100,000 Indians are studying for bachelor’s or post-graduate degrees and advanced courses in the US. However, Kaushik Kapoor, director, Erudite Educational Centre, which trains students for qualifying exams like SAT, GRE, GMAT etc. necessary for studying abroad, feels that in many cases the students not willing to be a part of the rat race and tremendous academic pressure at home and head overseas right after their high school. He agrees that for school- level education, India is the best. “I would say that we are the best for basics while universities abroad are better for learning applications of the basic knowledge. Therefore, it is advisable for the parents to make their children complete the basics from here and then aim for colleges abroad.”
That seems to be another reason why more and more NRI parents are turning to schools in India. Keeping in mind this trend, several reputed Indian schools have opened their branches abroad and are attracting Indian students keen for an Indian system of education. Even back in the country, the new crop of ‘five star’ schools across the country have found an infallible mantra to market them abroad : "Desi culture". This package emphasises Indian culture, values, language and ethos for an eager clientele of Indian parents abroad.
Most of these schools are being promoted on the Net through attractive web sites, while others have roped in community newsletters and newspapers. Parents are ready to pay exorbitantly to ensure Indian values for children whose only exposure to their motherland comes through an occasional Bollywood film.
Most schools have a curriculum that is suited to international trends and standards. Free from the pressures of a narrow academic curriculum, these schools offer an attractive array of extracurricular activities. They have frequent field trips, including adventure camps and outstation tours, national and international trips. Much of the schools’ budgets, ranging between Rs 10 to Rs 75 crore, are deployed in expensive buildings, labs, residential halls and sprawling sports fields and gymnasia. All these facilities plus a promise to nurture the kid in a traditional or desi culture ensures that the NRI parents are more than willing to pay a hefty fee.
The Indian education system is tough, agrees Mita Sharma who has recently relocated from US so that her son could be educated in the Indian system: “ I have been a student in India and I know if you can survive as a student in India, you can survive anywhere in the world.”
Probably this urge to give their child a competitive edge and also to imbibe in them desi values is prompting the NRI parents to look towards India. And we do see the birth of a new global generation - born abroad but brought up in India.
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