21.12.21

South Asia gets its 1st hybrid school; campuses in 20 cities

Beginning January 2022, admissions will open for south Asia’s first hybrid school – Jain International Residential School Hybrid – with a network of at least 40 home campuses across 20 cities in India, including Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam, Delhi, Mumbai, Pune and Varanasi.

Set up in collaboration with Hyderabad-based school management company, Crimson, this Cambridge-affiliated school will break away from the conventional format by bringing on board students and teachers from across India – irrespective of their geographic location and offer a combination of online and offline lessons, for the first time, to K-12 students.

Here’s how it’ll work: All subject classes will be streamed online for students through a learning operating system – TMRW – by teachers based out of different places.

For offline activities, such as sports, practicals, etc, students will be tied up with a school close to their place of residence. This will be called a home campus. For instance, if a student is based out of Hyderabad, they will learn maths and physics online, but will go to a school in the city to play football. The annual fee: Between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 2 lakh.

“There will also be a parent campus – Jain International Residential School, Bengalauru – but students have to travel there only to appear for their Class 10 and Class 12 board exams,” Francis Joseph, governing board member of the school, said.

Joseph said, “Through this model, we aim to bring together quality teachers from across physical boundaries, so that any learner located in any part of the country, however remote, can have access to good education.” The school, which will have four branches in Hyderabad, will be inaugurated on December 24, by Amitabh Kant, CEO of Niti Aayog.

“We are really pleased Jain International Residential School has joined Cambridge and is the first school in South Asia to offer Cambridge International programmes and qualifications in a hybrid format,” Mahesh Srivastava, regional director (south Asia) at Cambridge Assessment International Education, said.

Speaking for Crimson, Vishal Goel, who is also co-founder of Cerestra Ventures, a market leader in India’s K-12 segment, said hybrid model is the way forward.

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