Education is such a vast subject and our aim is not just academic but to develop the complete personality of our students, which would help them in moving up the ladder professionally. A lot of the things that we do are not really new. But because not many schools perpetuate them, you could say that they are different.
Technology: Of course, we’re keeping up with technology — in fact, we try and stay ahead of the curve. Blue Mountains School has invested heavily in technology. All our classes are now podcast. We continue to retain our focus on campus-based learning because you are educating the whole person and technology alone cannot do that. However, the podcast allows students to review the lesson as and when they require. This also eliminates the need to take notes as students will have a digital memory of the classes.
For our parent company, Laureate International, this also eases cross-education across its campuses around the world. For instance, if we have a guest lecturer who is an expert on a certain subject, that podcast could be distributed to students, whom it is pertinent to, across Laureate’s campuses.
Language: We are also starting English support classes, which will offer free training in the language. Our support classes ensure an IELTS score of seven. In India, spoken English is already good, but academic English is different and it goes a long way in getting higher-level jobs. We do this not only to help our students access the course material better, but also to help them get a better job and have a better career.
Success barometers: We measure our success by the careers that our students choose and by their performance graphs; of course, we take industry feedback on our graduates into consideration too. That feedback today is “You can put a Blue Mountains School student anywhere and they will survive and thrive.” About 96 per cent of our graduates find a job of their choice immediately upon graduation and 70 to 80 per cent of them reach management-level positions five years down the line.
I could tell my principal, “Look I want 10 per cent more kids every year” but instead, I ask him to focus on the quality of graduates that we are churning out, and to keep a pulse on the hotel industry’s response to them.
Course design: The focus is on transformational skills or what we call life skills. This includes values, prioritisation and business skills. The five-year course takes students to two or three countries with promotions every 18 months. The three pillars of our brand DNA are craft skills, theory skills and personal professional development. All our rules and policies reflect these. Our focus on moral skills is part of what makes our graduates desirable as employees — we focus on putting them in situations that they would otherwise not face in a university but might need to figure out while working in a hotel. Let me give you a simple example: If there’s a tough deadline on a project, and one student cheats by copying from another, and this comes to our notice, we wouldn’t simply suspend, expel or punish the student. Of course, there are serious repercussions to such behaviour but much like how a parent would chide a child, we will call the student in and ask him to summarise his own wrong-doing. We won’t tell his parents… we make him or her do it. We also have him or her apologise to the other student and come upon an agreeable way of making up for, in essence, stealing his or her ideas. We also train them in CSR; this helps as hotels today have CSR as a key part of operations.
Hand-holding: Our graduates know that they can bank on us, as does the industry. We have to ensure this. We offer a placement service on our alumni website. Hotels can even call and ask for specifics or students, and we can direct them. This works constantly and quite well.
Culture: Hotels are melting-pots but again, this is something that students are not acquainted with sufficiently in university. We have had Indians at the Blue Mountains School since its start in 1991. However, we’ve probably not exceeded 40 students (or 12 per cent) of the total cultural component. We try and keep the school as multi-cultural as possible. We recruit from 40-50 nationalities every year. To enable students to become savvy with and appreciate other cultures, we have a culture night every week. Indian students, when they join us, tend to stick amongst themselves, but 12 months down the line we see them mixing around a lot more. On our part, we mix the students up quite a bit. Twin-sharing room is always with somebody from a different nationality.
India story: Well, I don’t want to generalise but from experience I can say what we have needed to inculcate — Indian boys need to learn to be responsible for their actions; to learn that you will earn respect from what you do. Indian girls, however, tend to already be on the ball on how to be subtly smart. Here is an example: We once had an Indian boy, with royal roots, studying in our school. During the first week, his chauffeur-butler stayed at a hotel nearby as the boy could not unpack his suitcase or see to his belongings. We had to call the parents and ask for the butler to be called away. Also, by the end of the first year he wanted to leave. However, this is where the involvement of Indian parents comes in handy. I met his father and he asked for all the course material to be sent home. By the end of the third year, his son had excelled and we called him to make a speech at the graduation ceremony, as a proud father.
Starting from scratch at the Blue Mountains School
(NULL)
COMPILED BY RAYNAH COUTINHO
Education is such a vast subject and our aim is not just academic but to develop the complete personality of our students, which would help them in moving up the ladder professionally. A lot of the things that we do are not really new. But because not many schools perpetuate them, you could say that they are different.
Technology: Of course, we’re keeping up with technology — in fact, we try and stay ahead of the curve. Blue Mountains School has invested heavily in technology. All our classes are now podcast. We continue to retain our focus on campus-based learning because you are educating the whole person and technology alone cannot do that. However, the podcast allows students to review the lesson as and when they require. This also eliminates the need to take notes as students will have a digital memory of the classes.
For our parent company, Laureate International, this also eases cross-education across its campuses around the world. For instance, if we have a guest lecturer who is an expert on a certain subject, that podcast could be distributed to students, whom it is pertinent to, across Laureate’s campuses.
Language: We are also starting English support classes, which will offer free training in the language. Our support classes ensure an IELTS score of seven. In India, spoken English is already good, but academic English is different and it goes a long way in getting higher-level jobs. We do this not only to help our students access the course material better, but also to help them get a better job and have a better career.
Success barometers: We measure our success by the careers that our students choose and by their performance graphs; of course, we take industry feedback on our graduates into consideration too. That feedback today is “You can put a Blue Mountains School student anywhere and they will survive and thrive.” About 96 per cent of our graduates find a job of their choice immediately upon graduation and 70 to 80 per cent of them reach management-level positions five years down the line.
I could tell my principal, “Look I want 10 per cent more kids every year” but instead, I ask him to focus on the quality of graduates that we are churning out, and to keep a pulse on the hotel industry’s response to them.
Course design: The focus is on transformational skills or what we call life skills. This includes values, prioritisation and business skills. The five-year course takes students to two or three countries with promotions every 18 months. The three pillars of our brand DNA are craft skills, theory skills and personal professional development. All our rules and policies reflect these. Our focus on moral skills is part of what makes our graduates desirable as employees — we focus on putting them in situations that they would otherwise not face in a university but might need to figure out while working in a hotel. Let me give you a simple example: If there’s a tough deadline on a project, and one student cheats by copying from another, and this comes to our notice, we wouldn’t simply suspend, expel or punish the student. Of course, there are serious repercussions to such behaviour but much like how a parent would chide a child, we will call the student in and ask him to summarise his own wrong-doing. We won’t tell his parents… we make him or her do it. We also have him or her apologise to the other student and come upon an agreeable way of making up for, in essence, stealing his or her ideas. We also train them in CSR; this helps as hotels today have CSR as a key part of operations.
Hand-holding: Our graduates know that they can bank on us, as does the industry. We have to ensure this. We offer a placement service on our alumni website. Hotels can even call and ask for specifics or students, and we can direct them. This works constantly and quite well.
Culture: Hotels are melting-pots but again, this is something that students are not acquainted with sufficiently in university. We have had Indians at the Blue Mountains School since its start in 1991. However, we’ve probably not exceeded 40 students (or 12 per cent) of the total cultural component. We try and keep the school as multi-cultural as possible. We recruit from 40-50 nationalities every year. To enable students to become savvy with and appreciate other cultures, we have a culture night every week. Indian students, when they join us, tend to stick amongst themselves, but 12 months down the line we see them mixing around a lot more. On our part, we mix the students up quite a bit. Twin-sharing room is always with somebody from a different nationality.
India story: Well, I don’t want to generalise but from experience I can say what we have needed to inculcate — Indian boys need to learn to be responsible for their actions; to learn that you will earn respect from what you do. Indian girls, however, tend to already be on the ball on how to be subtly smart. Here is an example: We once had an Indian boy, with royal roots, studying in our school. During the first week, his chauffeur-butler stayed at a hotel nearby as the boy could not unpack his suitcase or see to his belongings. We had to call the parents and ask for the butler to be called away. Also, by the end of the first year he wanted to leave. However, this is where the involvement of Indian parents comes in handy. I met his father and he asked for all the course material to be sent home. By the end of the third year, his son had excelled and we called him to make a speech at the graduation ceremony, as a proud father.
Novotel Visakhapatnam Varun Beach celebrates fetes local heroes
Binny Sebastian appointed as General Manager of Alila Fort Bishangarh
Ibiza The Fern Resort & Spa opens in Kolkata
MiStay raises funding from Axilor and others
WelcomHeritage introduces first farm-stay property, Ranjitvilas, Amritsar
Ishaan Malik is Front Office Manager of Conrad Pune