School head Paul Regan at the seminar. (Sanat Kr. Sinha)

Calcutta’s first school to offer the International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum will open its doors this September. In the run-up to the opening, Oaktree International School has held a seminar at a central Calcutta hotel to stress the need for international education.

“Historically, Calcutta has always been at the head of the educational movement of the country. But not any more. IB is the finest school-leaving certificate in the world. A little over 10 years ago, there were just two IB schools in India. Now there are more than 70. But not a single one is in the east or north-east. We want to give the city access to the world’s finest school experience,” the executive director of the school, Aditya Kumar, said at the event on Saturday.

 

Kumar aims to expand Oaktree as a chain of schools in the country and abroad.

David Wilkinson, the chairman of the Oaktree board of directors, pointed out that Calcutta needed to be connected to the world in education in the age of globalisation.

Paul Regan, the founding head of the school who has worked in similar capacities in the UK, Africa, Ukraine and Bosnia, announced that the school would start with 180 students in classes VI to XI and gradually grow to its full capacity of 700. “Admission will be open till March. Our class size will be a maximum of 20 for practical and 15 for non-practical classes.”

Regan has picked his faculty from around the world — the Netherlands to France, Germany to Kenya, the UK to various corners of India. “They have an average of seven years of International Baccalaureate teaching experience. Three of them are IB examiners.”

“Enquiry-based learning is the modus operandi of IB. We want students to formulate the right questions, research and then form an answer. Knowledge is changing all the time. This way they will be life-long learners,” said Arno Dirks, the director of studies.

The school’s 30-acre campus coming up in Joka will offer a range of creative pursuits ranging from theatre to jazz, photography to cookery, while activity options will include golf, swimming, fencing, riding and abseiling.

The annual fees will be Rs 3 lakh for classes VI to VIII, Rs 5 lakh for classes IX and X and Rs 7 lakh for classes XI and XII, all inclusive.

“There will be scholarships for students excelling in academics, sports or any other field,” said founding partner Rishav Kajaria.