Schools: Partners for the Future
German Foreign Minister
Frank-Walter Steinmeier
Introduction
The project „Schools: Partners for the Future“or „Pasch“ as it is more popularly known is an initiative of the German Foreign Minister Mr. Franz Walter Steinmeier.
Launched in February 2008 in Indonesia by the ´German Foreign Minister himself the project has been a resounding success worldwide.
The aim of the project is to build a network of over 1000 partner schools worldwide, who would be networked together to build a family of global German learners in leading schools around the world.
The Foreign Office chose the Goethe- Institute, the Central Agency for German schools Abroad (ZfA), the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the Pedagogical Exchange Service (PAD) to implement the Pasch initiative on its behalf.
As a first step the Goethe-Institute and the ZfA were given the task of identifying 500 schools each and bring them aboard the Pasch family ship. The Goethe Institute Max Mueller Bhavan in India received the target of 39 schools. The criteria for identifying the schools was that they should be centers of academic excellence, promote the holistic development of its students and should either have German as a part of their curriculum or should be willing to offer German in their schools as a subject in the very near future.
Pasch in India
In India the Goethe- Institute succeeded not only in achieving its target of identifying partner schools and exceeding it by identifying 41 schools all across the country in the first year itself.
Mr Eberhard Weller, Director-Language, Max Mueller Bhavan, South Asia expressing satisfaction at the response from the schools says, “The success of this project proves that India and Indians realize the importance of Germany as an important partner in all fields and know that learning German will open up new opportunities for them”.
The Pasch schools in India are located in Delhi NCR, Pune, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Coimbatore, Chandigarh and Kolkata. They are all leading schools in their respective cityies and have a reputation of preparing their students to become global citizens.
In centres like NCR and Pune the Goethe- Institute Max Mueller Bhavan was able to build upon already existing partnerships with the DPS group of schools, Springdales, Ferguson College, and S.P.College to expand the network. In other cities like Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata the initiative offered the opportunity to begin new partnerships.
Mr. Ashok Chandra, Chairman, DPS Society, commenting on the programme , “ The Pasch programme has further cemented the already existing friendship between the Delhi Public Schools and the Max Mueller Bhavan. Our schools have benefitted from the initiative in a big way and we look forward to cooperating with Max Mueller Bhavan in the future too.”
The Memoranda of Understanding signed in June 2007with the DPS, Noida and Vasant Kunj were the first Memoranda of Understanding to be signed worldwide.
One of the great achievements of this programme has been to bring the state run schools of the Central Government, the Kendriya Vidyalayas into the fold. For the first time in India, two Kendriya Vidyalayas- Noida and J.N.U. are offering German to their students, thus giving KV students an opportunity to interact and mingle with the best in the world. Mr. U.N. Singh, the Joint Commissioner, KVS says, “ In today’s globalised world we have to prepare our students to meet the challenges of a multilingual and multicultural world and opening our schools to Germany and the German language is a step in that direction. I am sure the KV students with their excellent academic reputation will contribute towards the success of the Pasch programme.”
What does the Pasch programme offer its partner schools
Being a member of the Pasch family is a privilege for the students and faculty of the school.
The Goethe- Institute Max Mueller Bhavan offers assistance in implementing the curriculum of the school board. In fact members of the Pasch team have been part of the team reworking the curriculum at the CBSE making it more communicative and contemporary. Together with the CBSE, workshops for teachers have been conducted at the Max Mueller Bhavan in New Delhi to familiarize them with the new syllabus, and the new contemporary teaching methodologies evolving.
The partner schools also support the schools by providing the infrastructure for a modern well equipped German classroom. This German room as well as the library of the school are stocked with books and multimedia materials that make learning German a pleasure. The films and easy readers are specially popular with the students. Vaishali Dabke, German teacher at S.P. College, Pune says, “I wish I had had these advantages of a modern curriculum, well equipped classroom and so much reading and audio visual material when I was learning German! Today it is a pleasure for students to learn German.”
Another important aspect of the programme are the visits of delegations of principals to Germany. These trips to Germany go a long way in familiarizing the principals with the German education system, the functioning of German schools and a first hand experience of the benefits of this interaction for the formative generation. After one such trip, Mrs. Ameeta Mullah Wattal, Principal, Springdales School, Pusa Road: “ These trips have once again underlined that by offering German in our school for the past nearly 40 years we have made the right decision. Apart from this I have received so many ideas from my German counterparts on how to make our school more student friendly and classroom teaching more relevant to our times. Our German friends take back from here our inquisitiveness for everything new and our love for life and celebration. In fact the exchange between the German principals and us has become an ongoing learning process which can only benefit us both.”
The Pasch schools also benefit from the additional opportunities this network offers, like the students exchange programme run together with the Pedogogical Exchange Service in Germany. A large number of Indian students travel every year to Germany, attend school, stay with their host families and in return their German exchange partners visit them in India.
This provides the student groups, a chance to get to know each other, through their schools, lifestyles, families and homes and working together on structured socially relevant projects, there by becoming the fertile ground for many global potential partnerships in the future.
Furthermore, the MMB conducts the Fit in Deutsch 1 and Fit in Deutsch 2 exams for both Pasch school students and others. These exams are conducted in close cooperation with the schools, and the certificates obtained are recognized throughout the world, thereby motivating young learners and increasing their desire to carry on learning. And interest in taking these exams is indeed increasing: while in 2008 263 students took the Fit 1 exam and 119 students took the Fit 2 exam, in 2009 the numbers had already risen to 425 students for Fit 1 and 228 students for Fit 2. In 2010, around 1000 students are expected to take their Fit exams. Rock concerts, exhibitions, science experiments demonstrations, painting competitions and German film festivals are some of the other programmes we offer the schools.
One example shall serve as further illustration for the broadness in scope of the Pasch project’s programmes. In December 2010, a German language day is going to take place. The three D-A-CH countries (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) together with the Indo German Teachers Association "InDaF" will jointly stage this language day to offer an interesting and informative experience to the students of the Pasch schools. This year’s German pavilion will host an exhibition about science and technology. The students of our Pasch schools will be asked to prepare presentations on well-known German researchers and famous inventions that originated from Germany to show them Germany’s contribution to the world of sciences. Learning German not only consists of classroom teaching, after all.
What does the Pasch programme offer the teachers
The German teachers in schools, who are the interface between the school and the students are a vital link in the network. They benefit from being constantly updated in their knowledge of didactics and methodology of teaching German as a Foreign Language. The Goethe-Institute offers generous scholarships to all school teachers ranging from four to eight weeks in Germany for them to refresh their knowledge of German and hone their skills in teaching. “These courses help us to update our language and teaching skills, besides providing us the opportunity to experience first hand, how things work in Germany, how do the people in the country think, providing us a global perspective and enabling us to make our classrooms forums fertile grounds for cross cultural training”, says Ms.Neela Tatu, German teacher at the Mallya Aditi School in Bangalore.
To prepare the future teachers better for the teaching profession the Max Mueller has signed an MoU with the Indira Gandhi Open University to offer a Diploma in German Language Teaching. This is a distance learning programme that will allow young budding teachers skills to face their students with more confidence and plan a better class.
Our main focus: The students
All our programmes ultimately aim at benefitting the student and the learning community at the Pasch partner schools.
The well equipped classrooms, the interestingly stocked library, a communicative curriculum and well trained teachers are some of the advantages the students have, but this is not all.
Every year the Goethe- Institute offers German language camps for school students learning German. These students, encouragingly selected in their schools, fly to Germany for three weeks where they get the opportunity to participate in an international camp of students from all over the world and collectively participate and learn German together for three weeks. The camps activities are not restricted to the classroom but include other leisure activities including study tours in the vicinity of the camp. Phillip Roy of Don Bosco School, Chennai gushes, “This is an experience of a lifetime. I never knew Germany was so green, so beautiful. I am definitely coming back to study here.”
In 2010, the Max Mueller Bhavan offered two camps in India for students of Pasch schools in South Asia. The camps were held in the Delhi Public School R. K. Puram, New Delhi and in Thekkady in Kerala. 140 students took part in these camps, and they came from countries all over South Asia. Even 10 Japanese students, and two of their teachers found their way to the camp in Thekkady.
It was another kind of adventure that 11 students embarked upon when they left Delhi for Thailand to join other German learners from Thailand, Indonesia and Japan. Workshops on creative writing, scientific experiments , sports were on the very successful agenda. The interaction between the students from various Asian countries where the only common language was German is an experience they are not likely to forget very soon. Abhineswar Das, a participant at the camp, says, “I never knew the Japanese could dance this well, that the Indonesians had 1700 islands in their country or the rain forest in Thailand could be so beautiful.” He learnt all this while learning German!
