Calls to make Doon co-ed ignore its identity, history

OF COURSE, LIKE ALL INSTITUTIONS MUST, FROM TIME TO TIME, DOON MUST ACCEPT CHANGE. BUT THAT'S DIFFERENT TO A TRANSFORMATION OF ITS CHARACTER. THE FIRST IS CONSTRUCTIVE, THE LATTER COULD DESTROY THE INSTITUTION

- Karan Thapar

Should Doon School, which considers itself India's premier boys' boarding school, become co-educational? To be honest, this question has arisen earlier as well. The last time was in 2010 when then President Pratibha Patil raised the issue at the School's 75th Founders Day. An appreciative titter ran through the listening schoolboys. The thought warmed the cockles of their hearts. But the adults were not amused. Many of them felt this was a kneejerk Pavlovian pronouncement made in the pursuit of misplaced gender equality. After all, if Welham Girls' or Maharani Gayatri Devi or all of the different Loretto Convents in India can remain girls-only schools, why should the Doon School change its character as a boys-only school?

This is not an argument against co-education. It is, instead, a defence of the right of schools to continue as they were created. No doubt we need and must have co-educational schools but, equally, we should also have schools only for boys or only for girls.