By ARUN PRATAP SINGH
DEHRADUN, 17 Nov: On the second and the concluding day of the Valley of Words Arts & Literature Festival at Hotel Madhuban here on Sunday, one interesting session had three Principals of leading schools of the country namely Sangeeta Kain of Welham Boys’ School, Sandhya Awasthi of DPS Greater Noida and Vinay Pande, Head of School at Lawrence Sanawar. The theme of the discussion was ‘Principals and Principles’ and the discussion was moderated by leading educationist Kulbhushan Kain.
At the onset, Kulbhushan Kain introduced the panellists. He also highlighted the fact that Sangeeta Kain was only the third lady principal of Welham Boys School which is mainly a boys’ school. He further dwelt upon the changing scenario of the school education sector sharing that school education sector had grown tremendously since the time of independence. At present there are around 26 crore students studying in various schools across the country with one crore teachers and about 15 lakh principals. Kulbhushan Kain also kept the discussion of the session mainly focussed on the theme and wanted to know from the panellists whether the present day principals faced any pressures to compromise on certain principles for admission or regarding the students. Sandhya Awasthi cited certain incidents where pressure was exerted on her for admission to certain wards even when they did not deserve to be admitted or in cases where the last date of admission had already passed. She asserted she had never yielded to any such pressures. She added that she prefers not to pick up her mobile phone at the time of school admissions. Vinay Pande also cited instances and shared that in certain cases, pressure was exerted even by the Himachal Pradesh Government and in one case, the water supply to the school was blocked by the Defence establishment which is the source of water supply to the school.
Principal of Welham Boys, Sangeeta Kain conceded that pressures are certainly exerted on the principals but added that she did not believe in compromising at the cost of the childrens’ interest. Sangeeta Kain also did not feel that the principals of residential school are more insulated as compared to the day schools even when the number of students are much higher at the day schools as compared to the residential schools. She said that before joining Welham Boys, she was a principal at a school which was day-cum-residential as well a co-education. Hence, she is aware of the type of the pressures in both the institutions. In boarding schools, challenges often multiply because in these schools, the faculty and the principals have to deal with the schools 24 hours a day and seven days a week. Speaking about changes that have resulted over past years with respect to the challenges faced by the principals, she said that while in the past, if a student had to be penalised or pulled up over some undesirable acts, it was accepted as a normal thing and did not evoke any questions from the fellow teachers or the parents. Now, questions are more easily raised and she has to spend more time convincing the students and their parents why they are being penalised but nevertheless, action has to be taken and it is taken. In the past, the trust level between the faculty or the management and the parents was high.
The panellists also agreed that while the holistic development of the child remains important and as important in the past, results produced by the schools in examinations do matter very much. Sangeeta Kain said that to produce good academic results is very important as it enables the students to get admission in good colleges after the school. However, intangible skills too need to be imparted, She also cited an example where a student had repeated class 7 in the school but the parents did not prevent the student from pursuing their ward’s interest in paining and after some years, the person has been able to sell one of the paintings for an amount of Rs 5.63 crores.
The panellists also agreed that Artificial Intelligence (AI) can’t replace the need of a physical principal or the teachers in the schools.
