Shashwat and Shivika Goenka's RP Goenka International School is all set to open doors in July 2023

The urge to provide the best education to children has led to phenomenal growth in the number of state-of-the-art schools that vie for attention with their swanky infrastructure, competitive faculty and a variety of extracurricular activities. And the latest to join the bandwagon happens to be led by none other than the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group. 

Visioned by young scion Shashwat Goenka and his wife Shivika Goenka, RP Goenka International School is the first and only one among the leading global education institutes to provide a balanced mix of international education rooted in traditions. The sprawling campus in Diamond Harbour Road off Alipore will be operational from July next year and the admissions for the same are going on in full swing.

We talked to the humble power duo Shashwat and Shivika, who is the founder of the school, to know more about their newest venture in the education sector.

This is your second venture after International Management Institute (IMI) in the education sector. What're the reasons to foray into this space?

Shashwat Goenka: Education is very important since it forms the fundamentals of humans and what they end up doing later in life. With IMI, we were doing that at the graduation and college levels. But we realized the real impact can be made in a child's life much earlier, when you can actually mould them with the right value system and teach them the right ways to solve problems and think critically. That was the idea behind the school. Also, we wanted to give back to the society we belong to.

Did the idea emanate from the experiences that you both had as students in traditional schools? Also since you are new parents, did the prospect of creating a new-age school excite you further?

Shashwat Goenka: I had very traditional schooling at St. Xavier's but Shivika was in Singapore and had a very international new-age education. As we started discussing, it was very clear that very traditional education does not serve the future generation much, because the problems they would be dealing with 20 years hence will be very different from what we are facing, now. Holistic learning is the idea behind our philosophy. Therefore it's very holistic, reflective, trans-disciplinary and participative. It'll be more inquiry-based education, where we allow kids to arrive at their own answers. It's not really that there is only one right answer -- there can be multiple right answers to the same question. It's really about how you approach it and connect logically to arrive at that answer.

The nuanced difference that we are bringing in is that it's a very international education system backed by a strong ethical system rooted in Indian values.

Besides the primary language English, there will be Hindi, Bengali and regional languages and a host of modern foreign languages including Spanish and French. 

The whole idea behind co-curricular enrichment is to create opportunities for personal development. From our facilities' point of view, for example, on the sporting side, they will have access to badminton, volleyball and basketball courts besides a half Olympic size swimming pool. There's a sports court, an open play area which can accommodate sports like mini football and tennis, a gymnastics arena, a karate and mixed martial arts studio, and a yoga studio as well. There's an interesting mix of indoor and outdoor play spaces to suit the various seasons.

On the creative development side, we've got activities like art and craft, dance and singing classes -- both Indian and western. There's a model United Nations and lessons around music, photography, pottery, speech, and drama. There's also a robotics lab and a ‘black box’ for advanced theatre and performing arts practice. 

There’s an emphasis on community service. There will be an Interact club and Environment club and a lot of field trips which will give a lot of practical exposure to students. Open-air classrooms and kitchen gardens are also some of the key features of the school.

Shivika: We want the students to explore, read, and be more fluid. So, the student-teacher ratio is around 1:8 to enable the teachers to actually adopt a personalized learning approach.

How school bag-friendly will the curriculum be?

Shashwat Goenka: Each student will have their own personal locker in the school and the curriculum will not be very textbook-heavy since the teaching-learning process is more collaborative and participative. There will be homework to practise what you are learning at school. 

Tell us about the technical infrastructure?

Shashwat Goenka: We have a robotics lab and there's a design and technology lab for the younger kids. We also have an interactive flooring concept, where you actually learn through interacting with that technology. There'll be augmented reality and virtual reality learning. The entire campus will be covered with CCTV besides a digital attendance management system in place.

Shivika: Due to the rise in pollution and respiratory diseases we have an infant air purification system in place to remove any pollution and bacteria in the air.

Tell us about the canteen?

Shashwat Goenka: It's a vegetarian campus with a dining hall as opposed to a regular canteen as such. There will be a few shops across the school where you can purchase things as well. Nutritious food from different cuisines will be available under the guidance of a nutritionist. Also, we have a tie-up with Woodlands hospital and will have doctors on campus available. We have a fully equipped model in primary in case of any emergency situation.

How interesting will the uniforms be?

Shivika: They will be contemporary in design and we're keeping it simple, and comfortable for kids. We're going for a very clean aesthetic which takes different seasons into account.