Since each group blames the other (mgmt says “parents want this”, teachers say “mgmt wants this”…), I doubt whether 2-3 old boys dropping by one summer morning or a snowy evening can show that there are miles to go, in the opposite direction. I don’t see the “practical difficulties” in having a couple of serious PTA meetings and initiatives.

Pro-reform, outsider old boys cannot do much when the leadership within the institution is poor. Piece-meal efforts like Rejuvenating LENS might work; large-scale reform needs good leadership within the institution.

Paradoxically, the shift in emphasis has occurred when there are several Loyola old boys in the PTA. I would explain the Old Boy Parents’ inaction in terms of how Loyolites are awful in politics.

As Jiby said, creative people should be around. Managers often get caught up in fire-fighting (temporarily solving day-to-day problems), and there is little thought or action for the long-term. So, either the leaders should be creative, or they should get good and creative advisors.

With India’s diversity, I am confident that even if the school does absolutely nothing, there’ll still be demand for Loyola education. Parents of Tomorrow might take their children elsewhere. No problem — Parents of Yesterday will rush in with their kids.

Looks like any progress will mostly benefit children who are now in UKG-Class 7. It is their parents who should wake up, question, act and prod the school to go forward.

The excerpt from the souvenir was a nice treat. I saw a response from Fr.Toby in an earlier post. Since he is the only presently active teacher from Loyola who thought it fit to leave a comment here, it would be interesting to know the point of view from somebody like him or anyone else in the management, to this post.

Excellent one, Ashok…your posts are gentle indictments on the Loyola of the past and gives hindsight that will benefit the school in making descisions with foresight.

I may be wrong here, but even when I was in school, reports were coming in of new teachers being recruited who did not even know how to speak English correctly. Seeing that no school would do this on purpose, it stands to reason that there were no better candidates available. Hence, my comment on the larger problem.

Nowadays, Jesuits are led by parents. So, pressure from PTA will swing matters towards an assessment. (Whether individual leaders in PTA are interested and have guts is another matter.) There are several things, including teaching, which are within the school’s control. The old teachers Bimal talks of were once new. And yes, to be a great school, thorns must be removed; no pain, no gain.

Plus, there are things no longer within the school’s control. A fall in teaching standards has been noticed all around India, the reason being that the rewards and recognition of the profession are easily forgotten when a thicker wad of notes is waved under the job-seekers nose. Teaching being the most integral part of the software abovementioned, this remains a problem of monumental proportions. I can say with the utmost confidence that one of the findings of such an evaluation will be that teaching standards have fallen drastically. All the old teachers are gone and many of the new are ill-suited for the job at hand. And there’s nothing we can do about it!

I don’t mean to sound like a pessimist, but these are thorns that pepper the way forward.

I guess there needs to be a bi-annual (or 4 yearly) survey which needs to be conducted with an intention of being able to measure how far we are progressing towards realising the dream of becoming a “great school”. It should be an unbiased publication made available to students, old boys and the rest of the junta.

For that we need a vision statement (or do we have one? ) and the effort in realising this goal has to be a bottom-up one.