BANGALORE: For years, The Doon School in Dehradun, an independent boarding school for boys dubbed the Eton of India, has staved off repeated requests to open new branches or become co-educational.
The 79-year-old school, which has seen discernible demand from southern states, now plans to start a Doon School for girls in South India, which is “an idea that has been given serious consideration”, according to the school’s headmaster Peter McLaughlin.
“At this stage, we have a ten-year development plan that runs up till 2020. We will start to talk about the next plan from 2020 to 2030 in about 18 months’ time. I should imagine that a Doon South would be firmly on the agenda on this plan. I would support the idea of a girls-only Doon in the south and it will surely be a part of our plan,” McLaughlin, 59, said in an exclusive interview with Express.
The plan received a boost after the school received positive feedback from the girls who participated in the Summer at Doon programme that concluded in June.
“The ones who loved it most were the girls because they were treated as equals. They loved the fact that we believed they also could go over a 10-feet wall to do an assault course just like the boys. I think this is what we could really offer,” he said.
The summer programme had 60 students from 44 schools in the country, with many coming from the south. Then President Pratibha Patil, who delivered the school’s platinum jubilee address in 2010, urged the school to become co-educational, sparking off a debate.
As of now, The Doon School has been formally approached by the Odisha government with an invitation to set up a girls-only school. McLaughlin said the school is offered franchise opportunities almost every week to set up a Doon Dubai or Singapore, but the management is cautious on the idea of starting another school.
“The feeling is that it’d be very hard to replicate the one in Dehradun. We have a branch that is built on uniqueness. Eton, a very old and reputed boys-only school in England, is the most powerful school brand on the planet. The Chinese want 50 Etons, but everyone would know it isn’t the original Eton. Another Doon School would need something different and distinct for it to have its own uniqueness, like being a girls-only school,” McLaughlin explained.
The residential school is spread over 69 acres and is noted for its high-profile alumni, including former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. The school has been battling the “elitist” tag, which McLaughlin detests.
“It is a misconception and we suffer from it. We are elite, but not elitist or snobbish. Forty per cent of the 500 boys are on means-based scholarships and we want to increase it to 50 per cent. The sons of millionaires are treated like the rest of the students.”
There are about a dozen children from Karnataka studying in the school, which admits students from Class 7. “We want to create a template for secondary schools that makes the world sit up and look at it, the same way it looks at IITs. We have tied up with UK’s Institute of Education to create a teacher-training model for the entire country,” he said.
McLaughlin said it is a tragedy that many Indian children have been left out in the rapidly growing private sector schooling and that every child deserves to go to a school like Doon. “But governments don’t seem to have the will to provide the level of excellence in state schools. It won’t be so expensive actually, if you look at how much we spend. A portion of that would help the government provide a Doon school.” Many private schools with “Doon” in their names have come up and legal action has been taken, he said.