My school’s taking me to the UN

A bored stroll through a local science centre to stargaze has been replaced by a Power Point presentation after watching a spacecraft docked at NASA. Anuradha Varma reports on school field trips going snazzy.


Delhi Public School student Varsha Rao knows what it's like to study in Germany. Last June, she spent three weeks in Ostbevern, a tiny village near the city of Munster, with the Niehoss, a German family. The class 10 student was on an exchange programme with nine other classmates. Later that year, it was Rao's turn to play host, when Clara Niehoss visited India. "Clara's dad taught me how to ride a tractor. She and her siblings are far more independent than us. We girls would take off on weekend trips to Berlin and Cologne unaccompanied by adults," remembers the 14-year-old.


At classes that Rao attended at a local German school, she was introduced to a method of learning removed from what Indian students are used to. "We focus on theory, they focus on applied knowledge. Students there make Power Point presentations. They can switch streams midway, and enroll in vocational courses, without waiting to complete high school," says Rao, who submitted a comparative analysis on education in India versus Germany, on her return.

Sangeeta Sinha, a senior teacher at Rao's school, says international field trips are now an integral part of the school curriculum. "After a visit to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in November last year, most kids from that group of 40 returned wanting to become astronauts," she smiles.
Edwin Joseph, a class 8 student of Vidya Valley in Pune, is familiar with that zing of inspiration. After a visit to NASA last November, the boy who dreams of being an aeronautical engineer, was able to tell the difference between local field trips that he calls "predictable" and his dream visit. "It was inspiring to see the technology and infrastructure available."

Out-of-class, and overseas education come at a price, of course. While Rao's parents coughed up 50,000, Mumbaibased dentist Burzin Khan spent 1.5 lakh for his daughter Zeenia Khan's school trip to Beijing earlier this month. The 15-yearold, Class 9 student presented a paper on the overuse and abuse of prescription drugs at a mock United Nations session held from March 15 to 19. The Harvard Model United Nations conference was started by the Ivy League university 59 years ago to simulate the functioning of the UN for students. The school kids act as diplomats in various committees of the UNICEF and Security Council, while debating issues like humanitarian intervention in peacekeeping missions.

"It's about providing an early start on developing global ideas. You can't expect this sort of exposure inside a classroom," says Khan. Tanisha Avarsekar of NSS Hill Spring International School, Mumbai, was one of the 18 participants from her school, who attended the session. "The debates stretched over four days and we had to come up with spontaneous speeches. I spoke about peacekeeping in the Middle East," she says.
School principals agree that the learning acquired through experiences like this is unmatched - right from the time the teenager is interviewed during visa application to his interactions at the destination.

While headmistress of Bal Bharti Public School, New Delhi, Sonia Chhabra, admits that all students cannot afford the cost involved, she says their enthusiasm is unmatched. "When we asked for volunteers for a trip to NASA over 40 hands went up," Chhabra notes.

Sadhna Bedi, principal of City Montessori School, Lucknow, finds the change in field-trip returned kids, remarkable. "There was a boy from Class 6, who was quite pampered at home. We noticed a change in his behaviour after his return from an exchange trip to Australia. Such trips teach children to give space to others and improve their listening skills. They learn to accept people for who they are. After seeing spotless roads, they returned with a heightened civic sense too," says Bedi.

Bedi's school has taken students to Australia, Japan and Malaysia in the last three years, and participates in the Children's International Summer Villages programme, where seven to nine-year-olds visit 12 international destinations, including Germany, Singapore and USA. "These are a c t iv i t y - o r i e n t e d camps, where kids learn about the host country's folklore. Most of them don't want to return," says Bedi.

While organisations like AIESEC (Association Internationale des Etudiants en Sciences Economiques et Commerciales) have been organising exchange programmes for Indian school and college students for a while, the increasing popularity of this trend has prompted travel operators to jump in. New Delhi-based Amatra Travel & Leisure Pvt. Ltd., which has been organising exchange programmes for Indian students for the past three years, will begin to organise homestays in India for foreign students soon.

Gurgaon-based Frontiers Edutainment Pvt. Ltd. organises trips that cost between 1.6 lakh and 2.2 lakh. This year, they will take students to the Albert Schweitzer Leadership for Life International Youth Conference at the National University of Ireland-Maynooth and the London International Youth Science Forum at Imperial College, London. Time for your teenager to make Don, we'd think.

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