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the-south-asian.com September 2003 |
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September
2003
Culture
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Chand Bagh School – the beginning ……
The Chand Bagh School is the first project of the Chand Bagh Foundation [incorporating the Doon School Society of Pakistan]. It is privately owned and run on a non-profit basis. It began its curriculum in 1998 with 60 boys and by 2003 it has about 400 students. The Chand Bagh Campus is set in a healthy rural environment some 40 kilometers north of Lahore, off the new Sheikhupura-Muridke road accessible via the new Motorway or the old Grand Trunk road. The school has 180 acres and the Foundation has a further 270 adjacent acres for future development. Behind these efforts is a team of Pakistani professionals who originally were educated at the Doon School, India before partition. The brains behind this mega public school educational project were the ex-Governor Punjab, Lt.Gen. Jilani Khan [ whose real contribution to Punjab was his construction of farm-to-market roads network and not of making Parks in Lahore] , Mr. Masood Hasan, Mr.Rehman Quraishi [ of the Pakistan Air Force School Sargodha] and Mr. Nisar Munnoo [ the industrialist]. The school buildings’ architect was Kamil Mumtaz.
Could you speak about the genesis of the Chand Bagh School near Lahore? " I think we can say that the genesis of the Chand Bagh School goes back to 1935-36 when the Doon school in Dehra Doon, India opened its doors and a number of boys of what was then British India joined this school. At the time the Head Master was Arthur Edward Foot who came from the talented Foot family, which had socialistic leanings. As the founder Head Master, he laid the basis of what the Doon school is today. The emphasis was not merely on academic standards. More importantly it was to develop the character, intellect and physique of the boys. Most probably he had based it on public schools in England at that time. He himself had been connected to Winchester. In developing the intellect, character and physique of the boys an important ingredient was the concept of what was later called "socially useful productive labour". It had never been used in any school in British India. Nowadays it is quite commonplace in India but not in Pakistan. Dehra Doon itself was well situated with the Sivalik Hills in the south, Himalayas in the north and on the east and west were the Jumna and the Ganges and the valley was quite a beautiful place. In 1985 on the 50th anniversary of the school, a number of old boys of the Doon better known as DOSCOS were invited and we went over and participated in the 50th anniversary. Of course we met some very old class fellows. I visited Dehra Doon after about 45 years. I was there from Jan /Feb. -1936 to December 1940 - that is about 5 years - and passed my Senior Cambridge in 1940. On our return at the time, the late Gen. Jilani, also a Doon school old boy who was a year junior to me, was Governor of Punjab under Martial Law. So in a discussion with him we came to the conclusion that we should try and set-up a similar institution, not that attempts were not made earlier. Could you name some of the important people in Pakistan and India from Doon school. Well, in Pakistan I remember Gen. Jilani, and Mohammed Ali Khan Hoti, the education minister and senator from Mardan, were among the students from Doon. Among the old boys, we have people like - Khurshid Marker, who runs Marker Alkaloids, now connected with PICIC.- J.R. Rahim, retired chairman ICI.- Afzal Khan, started his career in Shell, retired as chairman of Pak Oil Fields, and is currently chairman OGDC.- Zia Shafi who retired from PTC as vice-chairman.- Rafiq Akram who was secretary general of Govt. of Pakistan.- Gen. Jilani one time secretary Aviation. Ministry of Defence.Contact with friends across the border has been bedeviled by political considerations and movement has never been free enough. I also had a good relationship with Ranjit Singh Garewal IG Police retired, and the active assistance of the 1985 Head Master Ghulam Ramchandani, and Lalit Thapar of the Thapar Industrial Group, India. One of the features inculcated was discipline. Rajeev Gandhi’s brother Sanjay was expelled for bad behaviour at the time when his mother Indira Gandhi was the Prime Minister. He was not taken back. The Head Master had breakfast with the Prime minister and that was the end of it. This indicates the independence that was necessary to ensure such schools function on the right lines. This I think was made amply clear and it was handled very transparently, that is you could not use your influence to condition matters in the school and that is it how it should be. What differentiates Chand Bagh from other Public schools. The earlier public schools, few in number, were Doon school, Aitchison College, Mayo College in Ajmer, and one in Indore. The philosophy of these schools was based on getting the sons of rulers to school and train them for their "Gaddis" [ thrones]. Basically it was an elitist approach. One of the jokes that used to go around Doon school vis-a-vis Aitchison Chief’s College was that there was a lot of horse-riding out there and the reason that they have horses was that there were not enough elephants to go around. Doon school was anti-feudal and emphasized socially useful productive work, whereby it was necessary for every boy to do something socially useful - boys went and read newspapers to the blind or wrote letters for the blind- some boys taught the illiterates. We had also adopted a village called Tulwala about 7 miles from Dehra -Doon - basically a chamar’s village and in the Hindu Caste system they were right at the bottom. There were a number of Brahmins at the Doon school who did not quite like the idea of digging drainage channels and other so-called menial work. I remember a classmate of mine, Ashok Gaekwad from Baroda; the Head Master asked him to carry some muck around in the village. So he told the Head Master – "look I can’t do this as a first class Brahmin…" So we all got to know there were grades in the Brahmins also which we were not familiar with. The Head Master told him " I’ll give you one week to think it over……..and if you decide to do it , well and good , otherwise pack-up ." After one week, a compromise was reached in which Ashok told the Head Master " I’ll do the work, but for heaven’s sake please don’t tell my father."I remember the construction of the Open Air Theater in a "khud". All the boys put in hard labor out there and that went towards their labour quotas, which were necessary in order to be promoted even if you did well in academics. One could be held back if one did not do the required time in manual work. Has something like that [manual labor] been started at Chand Bagh? Yes, we are doing this at Chand Bagh. Students help out in agriculture and also help out in the villages. We have a Chand Tara school where boys teach the illiterates. The idea of serving the people is paramount – however, in today’s world one has to do well in academics otherwise one cannot get admission anywhere. So, in the last two years, the burden of social work has decreased and the time spent on academics has increased. Is sports compulsory in Chand Bagh? Sports are compulsory everyday. We have enough area so all the boys can play for one hour at the same time. Are the students offered any choices? We have a swimming pool 25 meters by 20 meters, four squash courts, the equivalent of four full size cricket fields or fourteen soccer fields, which can be used for hockey, basketball, cricket nets. Right now we have five houses [all boarding] that have been made by private donations - AJ Hasan, Javed house, [Saeed] Saigol House, Mehran House and Abaseen House. There are 75 boys in each. We have started putting up a sixth house. We haven’t named it yet; most probably it will be named after a teacher from Punjab. Is Chand Bagh self-financing? Yes, from a cash flow point of view we are positive, because we are a non-profit organisation and depreciation does not play the same role as it does in a profit making organization. Student teacher ratio will be better than 15 to 1. Right now it is about 11 to 1. The school will cater to 600 boys. We start at class six at the age of 11 or 12 and boys go up to A levels - we are associated with the Cambridge University. Do you offer Matriculation exams? I don’t think we will offer Matriculation. But it depends on circumstances as they develop, I don’t know. It might be necessary to offer, at some stage, Intermediate also especially with reference to admission to professional institutions. Do you keep in touch with students once they leave? Yes, we keep track of them but ultimately this will not be the responsibility of the school. The old boys society will be set up and all the information will be transferred just as it is being done in Doon School India. How are the Chand bagh students performing in extra curricular activities? Chand Bagh has in fact come out on top in all games except hockey. In fact we beat Aitchison in cricket. The annual school publication keeps track of these events. Our students have been to Thailand, Nepal and Switzerland. Our debating standard is not yet of the desired standard. What do you think is the major weakness of the "Intermediate " versus the "A" levels systems of education? It is the output from Matric that is a problem. There is not enough emphasis on independent thinking. Most of what they do is by rote and their curriculum needs to be developed all the time. But that calls for good teachers and one of the problems in Pakistan is that we do not find good teachers and that again has to do with the general environment where respect for learning is rock bottom; we ignore our own traditions, and do not value learning. There is a Hadith [- sayings of the Holy Prophet Mohammed – PBUH ] that says " the writing of the pen is worth much more than the blood shed by martyrs …" . We teach art, music, debating and have an open-air theater where it is possible to stage plays. We are also trying to improve academics and have a system of student counselors. The teachers and their wives can, if they want to, have lunch /breakfast with the boys – hopefully to teach them better table manners. At dinnertime, teachers and the head boy and prefects are supposed to maintain discipline and decorum." Note: A separate interview with Mr. Masud Hasan consists of an analysis of the " Crisis in Management" in Pakistan and will be published in the future issues of "The-South-Asian.com".
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