Sunday, February 19, 2012

What is in a school.

When we were in Hyd, I noticed, a lot of the schools' posters talked about how if your goal is to get your kid into IIT, their school is the one to bet on. Why am I saying a lot, actually, all of them just said the same thing, at least all the ones I saw.

In Bangalore, the posters say, child's potential, overall development, well rounded personality etc etc. No mention of IIT in even one of the posters that I have ever seen.

Disclaimer of course being that the Bangalore we live in is not really the traditional one, maybe on the west side of town posters do say IIT? But then again, in my wanderings through the west side of Bangalore, I never came across a poster for a school ;) Also, in Hyd, I saw posters in equivalent areas to where we live in Bangalore - Kukatpally, closer to Hitech city etc.

So what is the deal between the two cities pursuing such different dreams!!

2 comments:

Idyll Mind said...

It's mostly private schools that advertise education. And only 20% of the country's schools are private schools.

And you know the ads are making an impact in Hyderabad because it is the only city in the country where over 65% of slum children go to private schools (in spite of there being several free government schools in the city). The private school market there caters more to those who want to improve their standard of living (represented by IIT), than to those who want overall development or a well-rounded personality, which are a less quantifiable benefits! ...

That being said, Bangalore has a slightly better literacy rate (perhaps because of the number of govt-school-going children) ... and are far better when it comes to educating girls!

The question to ask is, why don't government schools advertise, given how well advertising is working in bringing children to school.

DivSu said...

@Prabha - I agree. Subhash and I were thinking that Hyd is still a town where a good education still means the only way of improving lifestyle/living standards.

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