Ranjan Mitter – Principal, The Future Foundation School, Kolkata
An alumnus of Jadavpur University, BITS Pilani and INSEAD, Fontainebleau (France) with a decade’s working experience in blue-chip companies (Philips, Shaw Wallace, Polaroid, Titan), Ranjan Mitter took charge as principal of the CISCE (Delhi)-affiliated The Future Foundation School, Kolkata (TFFS, estb.1981) after the death of his mother Joya in 1999. TFFS is ranked Kolkata’s Top #2 co-ed day school in EWISR 2019-20.
NEP 2020 overview. The National Education Policy 2020 is a progressive and welcome document prescribing urgent pre-primary to higher education reforms. In a country where policy implementation often falls short of intended outcomes, all stakeholders should pledge to ensure successful implementation of NEP 2020 in letter and spirit.
Transition of K-12 schools to online/blended learning during the current Covid-19 crisis. The Covid-19 crisis has enabled Indian education to take a giant technology leap to facilitate teaching-learning. It has opened up a whole new space for communication and sharing. If used prudently, it will bring about revolutionary changes in school education. However, physical interfaces have advantages that online education cannot provide. In our case, the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic has strengthened our online teaching-learning initiatives, in place for several years now, through live streaming, video conferencing and other learning apps.
Increasing government interference in fees and online education delivery of private schools. Private schools like ours are finding it increasingly difficult to sustain operations in an over regulated environment. Even though we are striving to strike the right balance bearing in mind the best interests of our students, the going is getting very tough.
The Future Foundation School initiatives. Some online teaching-learning practices we follow include flipped classroom pedagogy; enhanced student-teacher communication; online classes on digital security and cyber bullying; live streaming of laboratory practical classes for class X and XII children and online counseling for students’ socialemotional well-being.
Top 3 proposals for re-inventing India’s K-12 education system.
- Provide seamless Internet connectivity in urban and rural areas to support remote learning as also affordable digital devices.
- Restructure evaluation and assessment methods and processes.
- Incorporate critical thinking and problem-solving skills into school curriculums.
Read the full story here on 25 leaders reinventing K-12 education
