A 70-year-old girls’ school is letting in boys.
The international wing of Modern High School has started taking in boys from this academic session.
Modern High School International has been offering the IGCSE (Cambridge Assessment International Education) programme for classes IX and X and IB (International Baccalaureate) for classes XI and XII for a few years now.
The school acknowledged the “need expressed by many parents” for a co-educational environment.
“A section of parents wanted co-education and internationally co-education is more popular. Girls and boys can be together, be treated as equals and be competitive,” said Devi Kar, director.
Modern High School for Girls, the institution that offers ICSE and ISC (under the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations) will continue to retain its “single gender status,” the school authorities said.
“The international unit is a separate school with a separate identity. We will retain the girls’ school as it were and the single-gender status of the school shall remain,” said Kar.
An IBDP physics class in session.
The TelegraphModern High School International is operating from the existing premises on Syed Amir Ali Avenue in south Kolkata now but it will shift to the new building once it is ready, which is adjacent to the original building.
Kar said the institution recognises the pros of both co-educational and a girls-only school.
This is not the first time that the school has opened its doors to boys, the authorities said. In the initial years of the school, which started in 1952, there were boys at the entry level.
It was only later that Modern High became all girls. Businessman Sudarshan Bagri, who attended four years (lower infant to Class II) at Modern High, said: “After that, I went to an all-boys school because they would not keep boys after Class II.”
“It is good to hear that the boys will once again be taken in because it was unfortunate that we could not continue there,” Bagri told The Telegraph.
A group of boys has started attending classes.
Siddhanth Jain, who joined Modern High School International in Class XI under the IBDP (diploma programme) this year, said he was looking forward to his two years.
“I knew there would not be a lot of boys at Modern High School but I understood I was part of the change that the school was undergoing,” said Siddhanth.
One teacher said they were telling these boys to consider themselves the “flagbearers”.
Next year, the school will start taking in students from Class VIII onwards.
“International education is more to do with conceptual understanding and not just learning something. The students recognise both local context and global perspective,” said Modern High School International principal Nandini Ghatak.
