Highlighted article: Mumbai’s new genre international schools

We found an interesting article around the international school community in the city of Mumbai.  It discusses the business side of the international school, the big business sometimes international schools can be to a community.  We have read before that the future of international schools are ones that are actually For-Profit ones.  Why is that a fact for the future of international schools?

Why might there be a resurgence of international schools in a community?  It could be very much related to the new upwardly mobile middle class in a society like as in the case of Mumbai.

Another issue with a resurgence of international schools is finding highly qualified teachers to work at them.  Hiring international teachers can be a big business as well with sometimes many international schools fighting over to get first pick at finding suitable candidates.

Currently there are 9 international schools in Mumbai India on International School Community.  They are: American School of Bombay, RBK International Academy, Dhirubhai Ambani International School, B.D.Somani International School, Oberoi International School , Podar International School, École Mondiale World School, NES International School (Mulund) and Singapore International School (Mumbai).  Overall, we have 39 international schools listed in India.

According to the article, Dhirubhai Ambani International School is the first of this new genre of international school.

Highlights from the article:

Although globally famous as resurgent India’s commercial capital, synonymous with Bollywood, the stock exchange, premier corporates and fashion houses, perhaps because of prohibitive real estate prices, the island city of Mumbai (pop. 13 million) is less than renowned for quality education institutions, particularly its schools. The city’s handful of vintage high profile schools such as Cathedral & John Connon (estb.1860), St. Mary’s (estb.1540), Campion (estb.1943) etc have reigned as Mumbai’s most difficult-to-access secondaries for half a century. Now somewhat belatedly, the city of gold’s school education scenario is about to experience a radical makeover.

During the past four years India’s commercial and entertainment capital has witnessed the promotion of over 35 new genre international schools. Launched with massive budgets ranging from Rs.10-50 crore, Mumbai’s latter-day five-star schools which offer fully-wired campuses bristling with hi-tech equipment and teaching aids, expat headmasters and affiliation with highly reputed offshore examination boards, are beginning to eclipse the city’s vintage secondaries as the first choice of the new upwardly mobile middle class.

The city’s first new genre international school the Dhirubhai Ambani International School, promoted by Nita Ambani (wife of Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries (annual sales revenue: Rs.110,886 crore) admitted its first batch of students in 2003. Since then on average in this city of fast-track private enterprise, ten new genre international schools have been promoted every year, dizzy real estate prices and land scarcity notwithstanding.

Indeed, somewhat belatedly some of Mumbai’s most well-known business families the Goenkas, Podars, Somanis, and Ajmeras as well as other private entrepreneurs have hopped aboard the school education bandwagon. Among them: the Podar World School (estb.2004) and B.D Somani International School (estb.2006). Next year, two high profile international schools the Aditya Birla Group promoted New Era School (Cambridge) in South Bombay and Oberoi International School in Goregaon are scheduled to admit their first batches, and in 2009, industrialist and page 3 celebrity Yash Birla intends to open the doors of the Sunanda Birla International School on South Bombay’s plush Napean Sea Road. According to the state government’s directorate of education in Mumbai, over 90 proposals for inaugurating new schools have been submitted in the past two years (2005-2007) and are pending clearance.

Coterminously with the boom in international schools, India’s commercial capital, which is receptive to new ideas including education philosophies, is also witnessing the promotion of alternative schools which abhor conventional school education practices crowded classrooms, uniforms, competitive exams, and authoritarian, omniscient teachers. Started by four parents disillusioned with conventional schools, the Tridha School (estb. 2001) subscribes to the alternative education philosophy developed by Rudolf Steiner, the late 19th century Austrian philosopher and educator. Steiner schools aka Waldorf schools, focus on educating and developing the whole child, not just her intellect. In consonance with the Waldorf system, Tridha provides its students a stress-free environment striving for a balance between academics, arts and crafts, music, dance and environment awareness. Tridha is one of three Waldorf schools in India (the other two are in Hyderabad) with an enrollment of 233 students who pay annual tuition fees ranging from Rs.29,000-33,000.

While Mumbai’s international schools are perceived as rendering valuable service by offering students much sought after international certifications, all’s not well with them. Most admit to being confronted with severe shortages of high-quality teachers, a pre-requisite of delivering the globally-reputed syllabuses and curriculums of the CIE, UK and IBO, Geneva. Given their academic rigour and broad-based life skills content, these international curriculums mandate stringent in-service teacher training and continuous skills upgradation programmes. Therefore recruiting, motivating and retaining best teachers has become a top priority of Mumbai’s five-star school managements. And it’s hardly a secret that most of them have signed up recruitment firms and headhunters to poach, purloin and entice the best teachers from schools across the country with unprecedented pay packages, including housing and other perks.

“There’s a drought of quality teachers globally and a severe shortage of new blood in the teaching profession. Therefore international schools are experiencing considerable difficulty in recruiting and retaining high quality teachers. Indian teachers trained in India’s new international schools are now being offered jobs abroad and tend to jump ship as soon as opportunity knocks. Therefore the attrition rate in five-star schools is very high. The only option for them is to hire expat teachers, but the government is creating hurdles to importing them. This is to India’s disadvantage,” says Capt. Raj Mohindra.

If you would like to read the whole article, check it out here:

Video highlight: A discussion about language learning and the second language learning of children at international schools

Language and Learning

The video addresses the following questions:

• How many languages can a child learn at once?
• Is there a ‘window’ of opportunity, or can they learn multiple languages at any time?
• And what are the cognitive benefits of learning more than one language?
• We speak with research psychologists and a language teacher about how kids acquire second, third or fourth languages and how it helps.

International schools should be at the forefront of providing the most opportune environment for 2nd and 3rd language learning in children.

Many international schools have very diverse student populations.  Using the school profile search on International School Community, there are 607 international schools out of the 1088 listed on our website that have mostly international student populations.  That usually means that students are coming to school already knowing 2+ languages, with English being a 3rd or a 4th language for them.

It is challenging to come up though with the perfect second language acquisition environment in international schools.  There are many factors that come into play.  One of them being scheduling, which can be quite restrictive at some schools.  Another factor is what is required of the host country in terms of what the international school has to teach related to the host country language.  For example at Copenhagen International School, the primary school offers Danish to the whole school, starting in first grade.  The program is very limited though, with all students having only 3 periods of Danish a week.  In this model (a kind of FLEX – Foreign Language Experience model) Non-Danish speakers in the school are not exposed enough to the host country language to really become proficient in the target language of that class (especially with the academic language of Danish).

Now look at American School of Barcelona.  They are teaching three languages in the primary school: English as the main language, Spanish as the 2nd and Catalan as the 3rd.  How would you begin to design a trilingual model of instruction in that school with a diverse student population?

Many international schools now are integrating mother tongue support programs as well during the school day and also during after-school hours.  Which mother tongue support program model is the most effective?

It all gets confusing for many international schools.  Many of them have been teaching in their model of instruction (for language learning) for a while now; finding it hard to change it.  Many international school parents sometimes don’t even want their children learning the language of the host country, especially in countries where the locals speak a language that is basically non-existent in other parts of the world.  Parents must realize though that it is not just the language their children will be learning, it is the understanding of the culture too; which is very important when the student and the family are being immersed in a culture, living sometimes more than three years in one country.

As teachers though we are the experts.  We should think about what languages do we want to have our students learn at school and how best to go about teaching them.  Do we want students to become bilingual or trilingual in the language we instruct or just merely proficient in the language?  When we know the answers to those questions, then we need to figure out the best model and environment for the students to achieve those goals.

The video discusses many of the myths surrounding language learning.  I learned awhile back that there is nothing stopping an adult from becoming highly proficient in a second language (like most people think), it is just that their accent will mostly likely not be native-like.  Whereas kids can learn a second language at a young age giving them a better opportunity to acquire a more native-like accent.  There are many more myths about language learning, and I suppose we are debunking them all the time with more and more people becoming aware of how best students (and adults) learn second languages.

Visit www.internationalschoolcommunity.com and contact a member today and get firsthand information from them about the language learning model at his/her current school.  Interesting question to ponder: Does a school’s language learning model effect your decision-making when job hunting?

Comments and information about salaries on International School Community #2 (Harbin No. 9 School, Int’l School of Helsinki & Cph Int’l School)

Comments and information about salaries at international schools on International School Community

Every week members are leaving information and comments on the salaries that teachers are making at international schools around the world.  Which ones pay more?  Which ones do you have to pay very high taxes?  Which ones offer tax-free salaries?  All important questions to think about when job searching, but where to find the answers to those questions?

Why do some international schools keep their specific salary information so secret?  Even at international school job fairs, you don’t really get to see the exact amount of your yearly and monthly salary until you see the contract paperwork.  Even then sometimes you don’t know what will be your exact take-home pay each month.  At International School Community, we want to make the search for salaries easier for international school teachers. In the benefits section of the school profile page, there is a section specifically for salaries.  The topic is: “Average monthly salary after taxes and in what currency (explain taxation situation). How often do you get paid throughout the year?”

Here are 3 out of the many comments and information related to salaries that have been posted on our website:


Harbin No. 9 High School International Division (Songbei Campus)
“18000RMB per month 2000RMB taken out in taxes each month. No receipt of this transaction is given as would be the regular accounting practice for a well run school. YOu may need a record of this when you leave the country.”


Copenhagen International School
“The taxes are around 40-45%. You get paid in 12 month installments. You always get paid on time. There are also payslips which are sent to you via email the day before you get paid. It is important to note your first year that your July salary will be severely reduced because of the vacation pay deduction. You will get this money back though if and when you decide to move on.”


International School of Helsinki
“The salary is paid in Euros. The taxes taken out are around 35%. The tax rate in Finland would make it difficult for a couple on a single salary.”

Check out the other comments and information about these schools on our website: www.internationalschoolcommunity.com

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