NEW DELHI: For everything the COVID-19 pandemic took away from education, it also gave Ramjas School students fruitful things in return.
On July 1, year 5 and year 6 students of Ramjas School, R K Puram had a virtual exchange programme with year 7 students of Taibei School, Taiwan. Indian students shared experiences during COIVD-19 pandemic and Taiwanese students introduced famous foods and snacks to their Indian partners.
This online event was attended by the Director of Education Division, Taipei Economic and Cultural Centre (TECC) in India, Peters Chen, Principal of Ramjas school, Ms. Ranhna Pant, Principal of Taibei high school, Arthur Chen, Senior Manager of British Council, Ms. Lisa Luo, faculty members and students from both schools.
Students demonstrated and presented their experience within 5 minutes. Every Indian student greeted in Mandarin “Ni hao” to Taiwan’s students. Preksha, year 6, said, “During the pandemic, I read a pile of Harry Potter series books”. Year 6 student Samiksha also said,”I spent a lot of time reading and learn how to sanitize living environment which is a good habit for me personally”.
Year 5 student Divyan shared, “I get used to having a mask all the time. From the pandemic, I understand that human beings are capable of learning each other and grow together, as we now learning how to fight the COVID-19 virus.”
Year 6 student, Tiara, learned dancing skills at home and hope to visit Taiwan after the pandemic, while her classmate Aditi improved her yoga skills at home in addition to the online course. Year 6 students Rakhi felt sad because he couldn’t meet the teacher every day, but he said “We didn’t lose hope. I believe India is a great country and now, in fact, we can see the situation is getting better.”
Taibei school students prepared PowerPoint slides to introduce sceneries, snacks, and traditional toys to Indian students. This is a good opportunity for Taiwanese year 7 students to practice their English ability. Daniel (謝又甯) highlighted the importance of wearing the mask and introduced Taipei 101 tower and its speedy lift and hope Indian students come to Taiwan to taste bubble milk tea and stinky tofu.
Jessica(蔡依潔) Sophia (羅韶芸), and Roger (李祤睿) introduced snacks including interesting “pig blood cake”, “oyster omelet”, “soup dumpling”, “scallion pancake” and “Taiwanese large fried chicken”. Ruby(莊茹佳) introduces Taiwanese traditional toys like “Taiwanese Kendama”, ”spinning top”, “walk on stilts”, “hit blocks”, and so on.
Principal of Ramjas School, Ms. Rachna Pant appreciated Taiwan to have a Taiwanese teacher teach basic Mandarin language to students at Ramjas, which helps students to learn more Taiwanese and East Asian culture and social development.
Director of Education Division, Taipei Economic and Cultural Centre in India, Peters Chen said, “This meaningful Indo-Taiwan exchange programme between Ramjas School and Taibei High School has provided a leading example to other schools for its transition to virtually exchange programme in helping students to access international experiences wherever they study.”
According to TECC officials, Taiwan is implementing its bilingual policy, therefore, English is one of the important elements in its international educational programmes. This online demonstration helped students to understand each other in terms of culture and experience of fighting COVID-19 pandemic.
One of these unexpected benefits was a proliferation of gripping expression by the young generation across the border. While there have been many challenges and are more still to come, today’s virtual exchange programme is one of the benchmarking of international education during the pandemic.
