Koneenica Banerjee and her dance troupe perform a folk medley at the golden jubilee celebration of Don Bosco School, Park Circus. Picture by Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya

One of the most sought-after schools in the city has reached a milestone. On March 17, Don Bosco School, Park Circus, which was set up by the Salesians to educate the youth of the locality, kicked off its golden jubilee celebrations.

The programme at the school auditorium was inaugurated by Union minister of state for human resource development M.A.A. Fatmi, speaker in the state Assembly Hashim Abdul Halim and state minorities development minister Abdus Sattar.

The highlight of the first day of celebrations was a seminar on the problems and prospects of globalisation, chaired by journalist Sunanda K. Dutta Ray.

Founder-convener of Management Centre for Human Values, IIM Calcutta, S.K. Chakraborty, Bethune College principal Monimala Das, Calcutta Statistical Organisation president Shyamaprasad Mukherjee, Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda University registrar Swami Sarvapriyananda, AK Chowdhury School of Information Technology director Subhanshu Bandopadhyay and Salesian College, Darjeeling, principal George Thadathil attended the seminar.

Dutta Ray observed: “Globalisation is not merely the exchange of commodities or the drain of India’s intellectual capital to developed countries. It should also lead to a reverse flow. For instance, industrialist Laxmi Mittal’s acquisition of Arcelor.”

The participants dwelt on the shortcomings of indiscriminate globalisation that are often ignored in the wake of the development it brings.

Chakraborty came out strongly against the perception of globalisation as “the freedom to ape” other cultures. “People are being educated today only to acquire highly paid jobs in MNCs, often at the cost of real knowledge,” he felt.

Mukherjee stressed: “Although we celebrate Indians acquiring lucrative jobs abroad, many merely do regimented work like hosting and maintaining websites. We should also be cautious about foreign universities setting up campuses here, as many are of poorer standard than universities here.”

Bandopadhyay spoke about the influence of globalisation on the IT industry: “Most institutes equip students to use IT as a tool, instead of giving them an idea of the concepts. The students are thus unable to contribute to development.”

Globalisation should lead to availability of free software, which would lead to monopoly in the market, he said.

The golden jubilee celebrations will continue for a year. The school’s infrastructure will be upgraded on the occasion. There are plans to equip classrooms with LCD television. A jubilee memorial hall, new laboratories, audio-visual rooms and examination halls will also be built.