Khurshid at the DPS launch. Picture by Pabitra Das

Delhi Public School Kolkata (DPS-K) was inaugurated on Thursday at 138, Ruby Park, by president of the DPS Society Salman Khurshid and chairman Narendra Kumar.

One of about 20 to be inaugurated this year, in places like Kabul, Saudi Arabia, Srinagar and Nagaland, the 12-acre complex at Kasba is set to house all the facilities available at DPS institutions worldwide. The CBSE school, for which the second round of admissions are currently on, will start off from April with 1,400 students from nursery to Class III. A class will be added every year. Teacher recruitment is already on, and the principal is from a DPS in Delhi.

A special project, explained Khurshid, is the DPS Shiksha Kendra, a “virtually free school” for economically-backward children of the neighbourhood, to start in Calcutta “hopefully in July”.

“These children will wear the same uniforms and have access to all areas of the school, and can use everything, from televisions and the swimming pool to laboratories. We don’t want them to feel inferior in any way. All they have to do is walk to the school,” he said. “In addition to that, we hope to continue the tradition of adopting government schools and upgrading them, with the cooperation of the authorities.”

A new feature to be implemented from this academic year is satellite-aided interactive distance learning, through which teachers and students in DPS’ around the world can exchange notes via a satellite network. This is in addition to the fact that they can go on exchange programmes to any DPS for any length of time, with accomodation provided. To help them learn the language of the country or state where they are headed, which is mandatory, there are “language labs”.

Narendra Kumar added that a number of plans are in the pipeline “to integrate the different DPS’ and enable them to share experiences and information”, including a Clean Ganga project. On an international footing, the “first ever” Inter-School World Cricket Competition has been scheduled for October this year, and in November will be the second edition of the World Children’s Summit in Delhi.

“Of course, academics is very important, but we believe in the personal touch. All DPS’ have to have ramp access everywhere and we have aids for the hearing-impaired. Also, there are special classes for intellectually-challenged children,” Khurshid said.

“There are a lot of well-known schools in Calcutta. We want to give them very good competition with our global standards. Ultimately, we are bringing in world-class schools, which is what we are offering parents here, to provide a quality education to their children,” he concluded.