International Principals' Educational Conference(IPEC) Organised by The South Public School, Omkar Nagar, Nagpur
Conclave with a special purpose
When schools in India started slipping into comfort zones, or when they started chasing mirages in the name of modernism, it was time to start asking questions -- about their method and manner, their attitude and approach, their ideology and pedagogy. For, what was on display was a cosy attitude to education where short cuts were becoming the order of the day. And that needed a serious questioning, serious discussion. International Principals Educational Conference (IPEC) came into existence with that aim -- of launching a continued discourse on the shape and size of school education in India so that the country released into the society autonomous youngsters whose grooming was appropriate to all times.
In its first three editions since 2008, held every alternate year, the IPEC has established itself as a conclave with a special purpose. It assigned to itself the task of providing a forum to school principals across the country to discuss and debate and discourse critical issues about shaping school education -- within the framework of the curriculum, within the confines of the classroom, within the school constraints of the school.
This was certainly a tough task. For, what was on call was the creative abilities of the school educators to devise ways and means to add value to their inputs without disturbing the system. In other words, the IPECs aim was to create space for additional inputs despite the rigid framework within which the schools were supposed to work.
That was like sowing a small seed, and nursing it to germination. That was like a small lamp trying to take over the Suns task once darkness fell. But three editions later, it is now possible to state with some confidence that the small beginning has now become a well-established forum of educational discourse in India. For, the IPEC has hosted many educational thinkers and experimenters in an effort to trigger a seamless, 360 degree thinking on school education.
The themes the PEC took up speak for themselves -- Total Quality Management in Education: School The Last Frontier; Let Me Sing My Own Song; Back to Blackboard; Harmony With Oneself Through Education; Generating Happy Minds- Thought Behind Education; Scripting The Legends of Human Excellence Through Schools; -- focused on students as the centre of all educational activities in human society. The tightly scrutinised papers that were presented atv the first three editions demonstrate the seriousness of of our intentions.
Whatever we discussed at the IPECs we practised in our schools to electric results. Our scholastic performance improved dramatically as did our standing in the educational community as well as in the larger society. For, besides scholastics, our students now perform very well in every extra-curricular activity at the regional levels, all thanks to whatever we learn at the IPECs.
The IPEC, thus, is a school for us -- in a global class-room. For, it is at the IPEC that an opportunity emerges to learn today what the world might think the day after tomorrow.
