In debut year, Maharashtra international board gets a lukewarm response from Mumbai schools

In its first year of operations, the Maharashtra International Education Board (MIEB) has failed to excite schools in Mumbai, with only three of the five institutions,

In its first year of operations, the Maharashtra International Education Board (MIEB) has failed to excite schools in Mumbai, with only three of the five institutions, which made it to the initial list of those getting affiliation, starting to teach as per the board’s curriculum. Across the state, 455 schools had applied to become a part of the first 100 to be selected for the board.

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Of these 80 sent consent letters and finally 68 made the cut. Five of these schools — Holy Cross High School in Kurla, Swami Vivekananda School in Govandi, Century Rayon School in Kalyan, DS High School in Sion and Lokmanya Gurukul in Dombivli — were from the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR).

While Holy Cross High School and Swami Vivekananda School have around 30 students in each class, Century Rayon School has only 9 students, as it reintroduced Marathi medium this year, after it was discontinued owing to poor enrolment a few years ago.

“Since it is the first year, it’s taking time for parents to understand what the curriculum offers. While there are a few students now, we are hoping that the number will increase as more people get to know about it. Those who have enrolled are happy with the way in which things are taught,” said VK Jhingon, chairman of Century Rayon School.

DS High School, which is one of the two schools yet to implement the curriculum, plans to start after the Diwali break. “Our teachers could not attend the training as many of them had not come back from vacations. We are planning to start with the curriculum after the Diwali break,” said Rajendra Pradhan, trustee, DS High School. Earlier this year, schools that fall under the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had withdrawn from MIEB even before the shortlisting process as the education committee had refused to clear the proposal. Meanwhile, several schools opted out as they did not find the MIEB plan concrete.

“We already have a semi-English school that is doing well. While we were interested in MIEB initially, we did not find the plan concrete and it somehow did not match our needs at the time,” said Dr Shubhada Joshi, chairperson of Tilak Nagar Bal Vidya Mandir.

Francis Joseph, head, development and strategy, Maharashtra International Education Board, said, “In the Mumbai region, the board had approved two private-aided and three self-financed schools for the academic year 2018-19. Of these, one private-aided and one self-financed school, after accepting the affiliation, wanted to develop their internal capabilities to make it [curriculum] fully operational from the next academic year. We welcome the move by these schools. The remaining three privately-run schools have successfully started implementing the MIEB academic programmes by bringing on board the teachers and parents by having orientation and training programmes conducted by the board. The board, as a learning organisation, is gaining a lot of ground-level knowledge from these schools.”