By Mrs. Amrita Burman, Participant, Principals Exchange Program to Italy 2018 | Deputy Director, Sunbean School, Varanasi
Program Dates: 17th-24thOctober 2018
“At the outset a big thank you to AFS for making this great learning experience possible. It was a well-organized program and the learning experience got better with each school visit. We visited a variety of their high schools and had a good insight into their schooling system. The volunteers at Milan and Turin were very good .”
It was great to see the children very responsible as volunteers and it was very heart-warming to meet the Heads of the different schools who were very welcoming and down to earth.
Their education system was a little different from ours but it was an eye-opener to realize that our students have a lot of in-depth information compared to their students in the field of science. It was very nice to see their children in fashion and art schools doing a lot of practical work. Their children make choices of careers very early in life ie in class 8 to pursue from classes 9 to 13. Their school is a year extra compared to ours. Their classroom delivery patterns were good but ours seemed to be at par with theirs. It was nice to note that most of their students went to public schools as their Public School system was good and it was rare that children went to private schools. Their Free and compulsory education is till age 16 unlike ours which is till age 14. We did get to see the historical places at both Milan and Turin. Italy was a nice place to visit touristically too!
On the whole a great experience… thanks once again and looking forward to hosting the Principals from Italy.”