– Francis Joseph, India CEO, GEMS Education

The world our children will inherit is stitched together at the seams. To prepare a child for this world and teach them only about their own corner of it, is a certain failure. Thus, at GEMS schools, global citizenship education is adapted into the very spine of the curriculum design.

A child cups river water in her hands. Whose water is this? She is sure it is hers. The river was born in her own country, filled with Himalayan snow. By evening she knows better. She has traced its long journey across three borders, watched it feed a farmer she will never meet, learned that people have nearly gone to war over dams and currents of water. The water slips away through her fingers, but numerous questions linger.

Children learn to mend the world by taking on the real troubles that bruise it. Hunger. Climate. Dignity. And, above all now, peace. UNESCO frames this in three words, ‘Head. Heart. Hands.’  To understand the world. To feel its weight. To act. The heart is the hardest bit. Empathy is no mood. It is a muscle, built only by use. A global citizen is someone tethered to a common humanity she has never met and chooses, daily, to honour with compassion and care.

International mindedness is embedded in practice. School calendars pose some provocations to deeper thought. Children imbibe research and deep-dives into diverse perspectives as a way of being. They may often be defending a stranger, whose experience vastly differs from their own. Young learners sit at a peace table and settle a real quarrel the way nations so rarely can. They may write to a classroom in another country at unrest and wait for a reply that arrives in another alphabet.

Cultural awareness, at GEMS schools, is a celebration. We celebrate the ‘Other’. We celebrate diversity. It is the earth’s life principle. As over 176 nationalities enrich GEMS schools everyday across the world, difference is a strength and our uniqueness makes for its elegance.

Founder and Chairman, Mr. Sunny Varkey says it without flourish. “Students have the power to impact their peers and society.” Test scores will not save a generation that cannot share a river, a border, a planet. A child taught to feel the farmer downstream, to carry the world’s weight willingly, just might. That is the education GEMS Education schools provide by design.

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