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August 20-23, 2012
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On a cloudy Saturday morning, while ISB was slowly stretching itself awake, an enthusiastic group of six eight-year olds were traipsing through the campus with much excitement. There was a reason for their smiles – they were the toppers in their class and a trip to the campus was their prize. These youngsters from Pune were here as a result of some intense behind-the-scenes work by their intrepid teacher Archana Rao and ISB alumnus Sai Prasad Vishwanathan.
Rao is a Teach for India Fellow in the Pune Municipal Akanksha School, where she set up an ambitious goal for her students – most of whom live in Pune slums and are the first in their families to attend a school. Rao declared that the children who scored 100% in the subjects that she teaches (English and Social Studies) and displayed exemplar behaviour would be taken to ISB. At the end of six units the top six students would be taken to the Hyderabad campus.
Thus, Sayaji, Bharti, Bilal, Aniket, Samruddhi, Asmita and Rohit clutched their air tickets and got on their way to Hyderabad. Rao was peppered with the most unusual questions in flight –“Will we see God?” they asked while pressing their noses into the window and gazing at the world shrinking below them.
At ISB, predictably, they gasped when they saw the library and the facilities. They were particularly thrilled to meet the dean. “Why are you coming to the school on a Saturday?” a tiny voice asked the dean, who promptly responded, “So that I could speak to you and make you come into this school, not just for one day, but for complete one-year.”
Rao hopes that the dean is proved right. “Most children now talk about studying in a college that looks as pretty as ISB,” she said. The children have begun to dream.