ScooNews September 2018 - Digital Edition by ScooNews

Children must be taught how to think, not what to think

Volume 3 Issue 2 September 2018 CHANGING TEACHERS’ LIVES EVERYDAY, EVERY WAY!

Margaret Mead

STRAIGHT

Group Editor Ravi Santlani Deputy Editor Parvathy Jayakrishnan

TALK

Reporter Anushka Yadav, Anshu Pande, Ashima Sharma, Anuj Kr.

Ravi Santlani

Website Team Pranav Sharma, Ojas Godatwar Art Direction Rexsu Cherry Advisory Board: Anand Kumar, Founder, Super-30 Dr Jagpreet Singh, Headmaster, The Punjab Public School, Nabha Dr Neeta Bali, Director- Principal, G D Goenka World School, Gurugram Dr Swati Popat Vats, President, Podar Education Network & President, Early Childhood Association India Geeta Dharmarajan, Founder & President, Katha Lakshyaraj Singh Mewar,Trustee, Vidyadan Trust & Maharana of Mewar Foundation Lt Gen SH Kulkarni (Retd), Director, Mayo College Meenakshi Uberoi, Education Evangelist, Founder, De Pedagogics Nishi Misra, Principal, Scindia Kanya Vidyalaya, Gwalior Sandeep Dutt, Founder & Chairman, Learning Forward India Skand Bali, Principal, The Hyderabad Public School, Begumpet Pics Pressfoto Pixabay, Shutterstock Cover Design ATLT Inc

Founder & CEO Ravi Santlani Vice President Operations Vinay K Singh Vice President PR Vanya Bhandari National Sales Head Pankaj Sharma BD Executive Yashwant Parmar, Shivam Joshi, Kirti Mishra EDITORIAL OFFICE EduPulse Media Pvt Ltd, J-3, Jhalana Institutional Area, Second Floor, Jaipur 302004 India Email: editor@scoonews.com FOR ALL SALES QUERIES Pankaj Sharma +91-74120-27891 sales@scoonews.com FOR SUBSCRIPTION +91-72405-17913 subscribe@scoonews.com PRINTED AND PUBLISHED by Ravi Santlani on behalf of EduPulse Media Pvt Ltd PRINTED AT Popular Printers, Fateh Tiba, MD Road Jaipur, Rajasthan, India. PUBLISHED AT, J-3, Jhalana Institutional Area, Second Floor, Jaipur-302004, India Editor : Ravi Santlani Publishing Date: 10 September ‘ 2018 Total number of pages 132, including Covers

To the moon and back

im for the stars; if you fail you’ll land on the moon’… is not just a clever phrase. The successful debut of ScooNews Global Educators Fest in 2017 empowered us to soar higher. We envisioned a conference that would not just raise the bar but set a new one altogether. Two days of thought and transformation that would see leading educators come together to share dreams, methods and blueprints that would help revolutionise India into a global education powerhouse. SGEF 2018… It had to be bigger and better. And that would have to begin with the venue itself. Away from the mediocrity of the city, an oasis of tranquillity which would foster creative thinking, synergy and growth… We found exactly that and more thanks to Lakshyaraj Singh Mewar, Prince of Udaipur. A staunch supporter of social causes, amongst which education ranks high, the dashing and driven gentleman proved he has a heart as large as his enormous palace. Yes, he generously reached out to help give SGEF 2018 a deserving platform in the regal, sprawling palace itself. Constantly refreshed by the breezes of beautiful lake Pichola, SGEF 2018 got off to a great start in the Durbar Hall of the Fatehprakash Palace, Udaipur. Over August 3 and 4, the conference was witness to some of the best speakers, pioneers in the field of education, who shared their insights on varied topics ranging from Beginning At The Roots To Make India A Global Education Powerhouse to Nation Building Through Education For All. Yes, change was in the air, as educators were provoked to rethink their current ways of teaching and administration and chew over new ideas and methods that can be put into practice. I’d like to think the fun quotient never dipped either, what with island award nights and Ghoomar moves!We already have our thinking caps on for SGEF 2019. Do write in with your suggestions. ScooNews is not just committed to delivering a truly world class education conference; we also want to take you to the moon and back!

September 2018

CONTENTS

Mission Possible From blending the technological revolution with the traditional Indian way of learning, to making the shift from content centric to research centric teaching, real examples of making India a global education powerhouse

76 Partner Felicitation

THE WINNING EDGE

124

Bridging the gap

GUEST POST HOW CAN A TEACHER MAKE A MARK?

112 COVER STORY Honour amidst splendour

THE DRIVE TO MOVE FORWARD Prince Lakshyaraj Singh Mewar of Udaipur focused on the qualities needed to engender change in education and life

An evening of celebration as the ScooNews Teacher Warrior awards and Jewels of India were presented at Jagmandir island palace

September 2018

YOURS TRULY SGEF 2018 experience in one word Speechless! I was glad to be there with the young, energetic and lovable team...! Dr Jagpreet Singh, The Punjab Public School, Nabha I think a conference like this is a great idea although the format has to change. There needs to be smaller, separate simultaneous sessions so that people can choose where they really want to go to and you need to have smaller audiences so that you have the satisfaction of being able to say what you need to say, long enough for someone to get it, people to ask questions and make it more interactive. That would make it fantastic. Kavita Anand, Adhyayan Quality Education Foundation Ravi and his team really need to be congratulated for believing in themselves and that belief system needs to be infectious to everyone who wants to do good work. I'm also happy for all the grandeur of a king that I can experience at this venue. Ravi Santlani is not a person, he’s a belief system. Lata Vaidyanathan, Veteran educationist & Former Principal, Modern School, Delhi It went very well and has more meaningful sessions this time! Skand Bali, The Hyderabad Public School, Begumpet It’s a great idea to get all educators together and make them feel important because that’s how you resurrect pride in educators! I’ve attended several conferences around the globe and there is a serious gravitas in all these conferences where you’re talking about what ought to be done but often, you forget everything. But what I like about this - the

atmosphere that you have createdyou’re as important as any other. Educators are much more important. I never ask my children in class what do you want to become when you grow up? I ask them what do you want to do for the country when you grow up? It is important to pose that question to each child. The shift in educators happens when you listen to others and their ideas. Thank you for all the effort you have put in to give teachers the status they deserve. We had a meaningful learning time. Thanks for taking care of us. And congratulations for organising a great conference. Shukla Bose, Parikrma Humanity Foundation In Early Childhood Association, we make people send us their best practices and we award them to promote that practice and allow others to replicate it. I believe that’s exactly the kind of impact this conference has brought and will continue to bring. In the next conference, I’m hope we can also talk about the solutions to make sure that we’re practicing what we’re discussing; it makes the educators feel energised apart from the theory discussion. Dr Swati Popat Vats, Podar Education Network, Early Childhood Association Thank you very much for sending me copies of ScooNews, August 2018 issue. I would like to express my sincere gratitude and appreciation for your excellent coverage about the Mewar lineage and its goal and service to the society covering each segment eloquently. Please extend my compliments to your editorial team and everyone involved in the publication. Lakshyaraj Singh, Mewar Udaipur

The Jewels of India article was very informative. You have picked a nice list of people who are truly doing great things in the field of education. They are pioneers who are bringing in new methods and trying new things to improve the quality of education in India. With the advent of technology, we need to change our age-old teaching methods to adapt to the changes that technology has brought in. ScooNews is doing a great job in highlighting the work of people who are truly making a difference. It is very heart-warming to know that there are people in India who are committed to the cause of quality education. Keep up the good work. Mansi Mittal, Bangalore It really was wonderful to be associated with you! Kanak Gupta, Jaipuria Schools Here's a hug in return to the entire ScooNews family who not only made SGEF 2018 a huge success but such an awesome experience for all involved. Smriti Agarwal, Podar Jumbo Kids Thanks to the ScooNews team for giving us remarkable moments. Hospitality was excellent. Felt like pampered daughters at our maika! Anjana Sahi, Podar International School Cambridge Nerul Excellent hospitality! Dr. Bharat Nakrani , Udaan Schooling System Thank you so much for everything, ScooNews. Do visit us in Bhopal. Amlan K Saha, The Sanskaar Valley School, Bhopal

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September 2018

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Thank you! We had a good time and everything was well taken care of.

Thanks to you all for organising such a great event and making us a part of it.

In a word – Wow! That’s my unique way of expressing gratitude. Well done, team ScooNews! As the dust settles down after a frenetic three days, the first word rolling out of my mouth is... fabulous... Congratulations! The success of a conference of this nature is the number of debates and conversations it generates. And boy, the fiery debates we had at Udaipur airport, myself, Kavita, Imran, Nirav, Venkat! A big shabaash to the young, dynamic team...Always with a smile...You have the right to feel great today, team ScooNews.

Hardeep Bakshi Seedling Group of School Udaipur

Lt Col A Sekhar, Alpha Education

G.D. Goenka International School Udaipur Big thanks to the organisers for your relentless efforts to make this a grand success. Lakshmi Kumar The Orchid School Pune

Thanks a lot for the wonderful opportunity. God bless all your team and efforts. This was one of the best platforms of knowing the present and future trends in the field of education. Best wishes to ScooNews and all the partners who supported the event. William D'Souza St Anthony’s Senior Secondary School Udaipur Thank you for a wonderful experience. We will surely stay connected. Sangeeta Varma My experience at the conference was fantastic. Inderpreet Singh Tuli Edify School Nagpur Well done team! You guys made it. I extend my heartfelt gratitude to you for being such a wonderful host. It was an amazing initiative by ScooNews. Left an imprint on many minds. On a more informal note, Ravi, tussi chaa gaye! I loved every bit of it. From stay to food to gyan. Didn't feel for a moment that I was somewhere else and not in my town. Your care, your team's care especially Shivam, everything was so well seen to. Stay blessed. Keep growing. Sonal Ahuja Thank you for being such a fantastic host and hosting a great event. You guys are superb and the best in the industry. Truly appreciate everything you did to make this a success and a happy stay for us. ScooNews rocks! Joseph Thomas Mount Litera Zee School

I had a wonderful time, thank you. Kavita Anand Children's Academy Thank you! It was a memorable event! Manisha Arondekar, Dr. S Radhakrishnan International School A really well-organised event. Hats off to you all! Neelakshi, Member of ECA I had a great time, thoroughly enjoyed the SGEF. Thank you for everything. Nisha Paraswani The Jain international school, Hyderabad It was an experience of a lifetime. Rohit Soni Thanks for everything team ScooNews. Till we meet again! Vivek Mansukhani Institute of International Education Everything was excellent! Suvidha Shekar Williez Pre-School Thanks for everything. Thanks to the team who helped make our stay so beautiful. I will stay connected. Sujay Mehta

Awesome... I really enjoyed the entire conference... the gala dinner, networking, panel discussions, meeting educators. Payal Shewani Al Dhafra Private School, Abu Dhabi Many thanks for an extremely wellorganized conference and great hospitality. Keep it up Gitika Millennium Education It was wonderful to see and meet great people. The arrangements were lovely! It was one of the most memorable events I have attended in the last 10 years. The team should be given a special award for making us feel at home. Thank you ScooNews. Ajit Balan Cosmopolitan Education Society Thank you, it was indeed lovely to have met all great thinkers under one roof combined with excellent hospitality. The second day of the conference was a little dull compared to the first day; maybe we could have had equally power packed sessions the next day. Also, the support partners’ presentations could have been spaced out on both days as the second day had more presentations and less powerful topics to discuss. Rakhee Chhabria At the onset please accept my big congratulations on such a great flawless summit over these two days. Vasudha Rickwoods Thank you for being so hospitable, pleasant and helping. The entire experience was very good. Rajani Paranjpe Door Step Schools It was a great experience indeed at ScooNews Global Educator Fest 2018 Udaipur. Roshni Mukherjee Exam Fear Education Thank you so much for everything. It was a great event. The event was rocking and has achieved all its objectives. Kriti Bharti The Saarthi Trust

September 2018

TRENDING Robots can’t replace teachers but can boost children's education A new study suggests that robots can play an important role in the education of young people but will never fully replace teachers. Published in Science Robotics, scientists say social robots are proving effective in the teaching of certain narrow subjects, such as vocabulary or prime numbers. But current technical limitations - particularly around speech recognition and the ability for social interaction mean their role will largely be confined to that of teaching assistants or tutors, at least for the foreseeable future. The study was led by Professor in Robotics Tony Belpaeme, from the University of Plymouth and Ghent University, who has worked in the field of social robotics for around two decades. The current study, compiled in conjunction with academics at Yale University and the University of Tsukuba, involved a review of more than 100 published articles, which have shown robots to be effective at increasing outcomes, largely because of their physical presence. However, it also explored in detail some of the technical constraints highlighting that speech recognition, for example, is still insufficiently robust to allow the robot to understand spoken utterances from young children. It also says that introducing social robots into the school curriculum would pose significant logistical challenges and might in fact carry risks, with some children being seen to rely too heavily on the help offered by robots rather than using them when they are in difficulty.

LNMU, UNICEF sign MoU on quality school education A memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between Lalit Narayan Mithila University (LNMU) and UNICEF to organise capacity building sessions for teachers and to improve the quality of school education. LNMU’s directorate of distance education (DDE) was made the nodal agency for the project. Apart from technical support, an amount of Rs 165 crore will be provided by UNICEF to organise 21 programmes over a period of three years. In the first phase, a six-day workshop will be conducted by the DDE from August 28. LNMU vice-chancellor S K Singh said the university will be able to fulfil the aspirations of schoolchildren towards the improvement of quality of both primary and secondary education. It is for the first time that UNICEF has joined hands with a university in the state to improve and impart qualitative training to school teachers.

Supporting resilience in Puerto Rican schools Last September, Puerto Rico was hit by Hurricane Maria. It was the strongest storm in 85 years that left the people of the island devastated and weakened the infrastructure. While everyone is trying to re-build their lives again, Save the Children has decided to join hands with Puerto Rico’s Department of Education and Rocky Mountain Institute of Boulder, Colorado to support 12 schools that were greatly impacted in the historic hurricane season. The focus of Save the Children will be to help and make the schools and their communities more resilient for future natural disasters and strengthen the social and emotional learning for the school populations. The non-profit organisation will be providing school books, sports equipment and other materials that were lost in the storm, to growing afterschool education programmes from kindergarten through eighth grade students. They will also be conducting social and emotional support programmes to help children and their caregivers understand and cope with emotions caused by traumatic experiences like hurricanes. There will be preparedness workshops which will serve as support and preparation for future emergencies for the whole community – from schools, to families and beyond. Rocky Mountain Institute is extending its support by installing solar micro-grid systems at school campuses to ensure undisrupted learning. These micro-grid panels will help the children return to learning as soon as possible.

September 2018

Quality grading of school education

A 70-point grading index has been introduced by the HRD Ministry to evaluate the quality of school education offered by states. It is being said that the grading parameters will include school infrastructure, number of teaching posts and vacancies against them, transparency in recruitment and promotion of teachers. "The idea is not to rank the states but grade their performance as ranking may bring unhealthy competition. Grading will help motivate more states to adopt structural reforms in school education," a source in the ministry said. Sources say that the ministry is also planning to set up a Central Institute of Assessment (CIA) to work with NCERT and the states on pedagogical interventions to improve learning outcomes.

In collaboration with Weill Cornell Medicine - Qatar (WCM-Q), Mall of Qatar and the Qatar Unified Awareness Group, The Ministry of Education and Higher Education has launched a back-to-school campaign for the 2018-2019 academic year. This 10-day campaign is set to enhance communication with all parties in the educational process, to prepare students for the new academic year, to involve their parents and all partners in the educational process and to benefit from the support services provided to students and schools to receive the new academic year more effectively. The campaign will be held at Mall of Qatar, which is hosting it for the second consecutive year, from 3 pm until 10 pm.

‘Back to School’ campaign in Qatar

It aims to remind of the importance of moral and psychological readiness to study, and focus on the importance of regular attendance from the first day with all seriousness. At a press conference, director of Public Relations and Communication at the ministry Hassan al- Mohammadi emphasised on the ministry’s keenness to activate and apply the culture of desire to learn, considering the campaign of successful initiatives of the ministry in order to enhance the capabilities and potential of students and develop and fuel their spirit of competition and creativity through a set of guidance and useful educational advice, to serve the educational system in Qatar at the beginning of a new academic year.

He also said that the campaign focused not only on the academic year but also on the psychological and mental aspects of every family in Qatar that has children studying in public schools. The involvement of parents and educators will be equal and there will be various competitions, activities and events to engage everyone. Chief communications officer at WCM-Q, Nesreen al-Rifai said that the campaign is also to educate young children about the benefits of adopting a healthy lifestyle. Director of marketing at Mall of Qatar, Janine Spencer and director of the Qatar Unified Awareness Group Nasser al-Shammari, also spoke about the educational, cultural, entertainment activities that are planned.

More than 63,500 Maharashtra schools go digital Maharashtra’s Chief Minister Devendra Fadvanis chaired a review meeting of school education department where he emphasised on elearning and e-school projects as necessities in the era of information technology. School education minister Vinod Tawde, Additional Principal Secretary of the School Education department Vandana Krishna, among others, attended the meeting. “In January 2016, more than 10,000 schools became digital. Now at the end of June this year, more than 63,500 schools have gone digital. In the coming days, the students should get facilities like e-learning and eschool. The school education department should work in this direction,” Fadvanis said. The CM focused on raising the study standards of students and enhancing the academic quality through advance educational initiatives. Initiatives like Basic Reading Ability Development will help teachers to know the capacity of the student, he added. Sindhudurg and Ratnagiri districts are at the forefront according to the National Performance Survey, he said. “This percentage should increase in other districts also,” he said. Vinod Tawde spoke about the ‘Avirat’ project which is being implemented by school education department and is in its first phase, wherein over 40,000 teachers have been imparted training, while the second phase is expected to commence soon.

September 2018

TRENDING

Children account for nearly one-third of identified trafficking victims globally

2,000

anganwadis to turn into English kindergarten Inspection is underway to choose 2,000 anganwadis to convert them to English kindergartens, said School Education Minister KA Sengottaiyan. He said that they are working with the Social Welfare department to choose 2,000 anganwadis situated with middle schools, to convert them to LKG and UKG. The pre-school will be set in English medium to ease students’ process of doing school education in English, he said. The model school inaugurated will serve as an example for headmasters to facilitate a similar atmosphere in other schools in the district. Sengottaiyan said that Rs.50 lakh has been allocated to set-up a model school in every district in the state. Presidency Girls’ Higher Secondary School in Chennai was chosen to be renovated as a model school. The school education department tied up with NGOs and corporate firms to set up a new interactive science lab, digital library and play room. The science lab will have models that will explain fundamental concepts with hands-on-experience.

Inspection is underway to Approximately 28 percent of identified victims of trafficking globally are children, UNICEF and the Inter-Agency Coordination Group against Trafficking (ICAT) said today on the eve of the World Day against Trafficking in Persons. Across regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa, Central America and the Caribbean, children account for an even higher proportion of identified trafficking victims, at 64 and 62 per cent respectively. UNICEF and ICAT believe the number of children who fall victim to trafficking is higher than current data suggests. The reality is that children are infrequently identified as victims of trafficking. Few come forward for fear of their traffickers, lack of information about their options, mistrust of authorities, fear of stigma or the likelihood of being returned without any safeguards and limited material support. Refugee, migrant and displaced children are especially vulnerable to trafficking. Whether they are escaping war and violence or pursuing better education and livelihood opportunities, too few children find pathways to move regularly and safely with their families. This increases the likelihood that children and their family members will turn to irregular and more dangerous routes, or that children will move on their own, leaving them more vulnerable to violence, abuse, and exploitation by traffickers. In many contexts, there is a lack of sustainable solutions for child victims of trafficking – including long-term assistance, rehabilitation, and protection. Many child protection systems remain under-resourced, and there is an acute lack of guardianship and other alternative care arrangements. Children are often placed in inadequate shelters, where they risk further traumatisation and re-victimisation. Trafficked boys can face additional challenges, as gender stereotypes can prevent them from getting or seeking the help they need, while girls may also be at risk of further exploitation and abuse due to gender discrimination and gendered poverty. The UN children’s agency and ICAT continue to call for the implementation of government policies and cross-border solutions to keep these children safe, including: • Expanding safe and legal pathways for children to move with their families, including by accelerating refugee status determinations and addressing obstacles in law and practice that prevent children from reuniting with their families; • Strengthening child and social protection systems to prevent, identify, refer, and address cases of trafficking, violence, abuse, and exploitation against children and respond to children with specific needs based on age and gender; • Ensuring that sustainable solutions are guided by an individual assessment of the child’s case and best interests determination (BID), regardless of the child’s status, and that the child participates in this process to a degree appropriate to her/ his age and maturity; ? Improving cross-border collaboration and knowledge exchange between and among border control, law enforcement and child protection authorities, and implement faster family tracing and reunification procedures and alternative care arrangements for children deprived of parental care. ? Avoiding measures which may push children to choose riskier routes and to move alone to avoid detection by law enforcement.

September 2018

The ACT Government’s education overhaul is a 10-year road map that aims at preparing students for technologies, jobs and a wider world where critical thinking and creativity will be assets for success. Thus, future timetables will witness a shift from traditional subjects towards practical subjects such as creativity, complex problem solving and critical and logical thinking. The future of education strategy is expected to bring several changes namely enrolment of children in learning from birth, growth of personalised learning programmes and new digital assessment tools, schools as ‘community hubs’ for students along with enhanced wellbeing and psychological support. Saying it was “time for change” in the educational sphere, Kris Willis, acting school improvement director, announced the Future of Education strategy. He further added, “Facts and figures once held as paramount in classrooms, and knowing facts and figures, is no longer relevant in today's society.” A result of consultation with more than five thousand Canberrans including more than half students, the strategy has provided direction for the next decade of education, data collection, school tests, staff diversity and student welfare in the capital. Students and educators of Dickson College came to the conclusion that the concept of individualised learning should focus of teaching skills that an individual can use long after their school days; which is possible through conducting classes such as interdisciplinary inquiry and using student learning tests such as NAPLAN and the Secondary School Certificate. Student learning outcomes will be measured by keeping a “minuteto-minute” pulse on each student’s learning. The focus for the first two years will be on rewriting legislation as groundwork for the decade ahead followed by training and developing teachers in methods such as personalised training. All set to work alongside the ACT Government’s early childhood strategy, the strategy will trial technologies and data monitoring learning and is expected to be delivered by the end of the year.

Canberra ed system marching towards 'personalised learning'

Nigerian couple answers Boko Haram's anti-education campaign with schools Boko Haram, a militant Islamist group in Nigeria, stands against Western society and its influences – especially Western-style education. “Boko Haram” which literally translates to “Western education is forbidden”, have destroyed several government schools.However, brave activists such as Rebecca Gadzama and her husband are using Boko Haram’s target as a weapon; they started a group called Education Must Continue, or EMC which aims at bringing quality education to areas destroyed by the militants.“We are just private individuals, just good citizens, natives of this area, so…because we weren’t sure when the government would start their school, we just found this place,” Gadzama said.Managing two schools for displaced children, one in Lassa and one in the city of Yola, EMC has over 1,600 students and 80 teachers. Even with the lurking danger, the teachers meet under trees in open fields, giving them a chance to run in case of an attack. However, classes with students are conducted under roofs of a newly built building or tents provided by the government. Since the government doesn’t rebuild in the Lassa area, the schools are supported mostly by donations. And the little help might be because Lassa is a Christian town, while the majority in northern Nigeria are Muslims; even during the 2009 insurgency, Lassa was an easy target for the militants.A 23-year-old school teacher from Lassa, Maimuna Zhubairu’s three uncles and older brother were killed by Boko Haram. “Most of the help comes from NGOs,” she said. “The government, they are not doing much help.”However, Muhammed Bulama, the Borno state minister of information, says the government has begun working in Lassa, helping to rebuild a church. The sufferings of the Christian students at EMC schools continue as the horror of the militants continue to haunt them. “Boko Haram, I see them use knife, chop my grandfather head,” 13-yearold Ibrahim Daniel told VOA, speaking in pidgin English. However, their suffering makes them stronger as they are determined to become soldiers and punish Boko Haram.“It is not an issue of fighting back,” Rebecca Gadzama, the EMC founder, said. “It’s an issue of how do we get over this? How do we become one again, because the guys in the Boko Haram are also children.” She also hopes that the school library, as part of education, will help in the process of healing these innocent yet scarred minds.

September 2018

SGEF 2018

September 2018

MISSION POSSIBLE

From blending the technological revolution with the traditional Indian way of learning, to making the shift from content centric to research centric teaching, real examples of making India a global education powerhouse

he theme of the second ScooNews Global Educators Fest – ‘Making India a global education powerhouse’ might seem a tad insurmountable to some. However, many educators have implemented a range of measures that have put the mission firmly on track. Key educators at SGEF 2018 share with us the steps they have already adopted to reach that target. Read on for inspiration…

September 2018

SGEF 2018 CONNECTION AND COLLABORATION Dr Jagpreet Singh, Headmaster, The Punjab Public School, Nabha

A lot of people have a very wrong idea that “global” means going out of your school into another country. It’s not true. Any school can be a global school sitting in a classroom. They only need to connect - connect to another part of the world, learn their culture, integrate with them and there has to be a lot of collaborative learning which can give them an idea of the values that other countries have. We have a lot of international exchange programmes, we have a lot of children from other countries who come and stay with us. We are also a member of the AFS. These give us an opportunity to host these children and see their culture and understand them. Education doesn’t have boundaries today. We have to talk about global values. In that manner, we have to conduct our classrooms. Our school is a very rooted school but the values given to the children are global. Sustainability is a concern. We are giving them a global touch, exposure to the global challenges which will come tomorrow, and the skills needed. The digital world has made it so easy to integrate with the global culture. India or America, they are part of the same colony. If you go to America, France or Italy, you will find that they are all talking on the same subjects. The issues are common but the approach to the issue may be different. I think India is already a powerhouse - we just need to give a global touch to it. The 21st century is our century and we will make an academic difference and we will prevail in the world. This is my very strong conviction.

September 2018

CHILD-CENTRED CLASSROOM Shukla Bose, Founder and CEO, Parikrma Humanity Foundation

‘He who opens a school door, closes a prison,’ this phrase by Victor Hugo many years ago continues to be pertinent even today. I strongly and passionately believe that the demographic dividend that we often talk about will turn out to be a demographic disaster if we do not look at education as a strong influence on our society. I have always believed in the power of education; dedicating nearly 30 years of my life to creating an education platform which is equal, highly competitive and has a wholesome approach in transforming the lives of children. Thus, if we are not able to involve and integrate the lower social and economic segments of society, a disconnect will always continue to exist. We may talk about social unrest, terrorism and the law and order situation but we fail to look at their origin - it is this divide and inequity that exists resulting in dissatisfaction and frustration. With technology, the poor are getting to know what they don’t have. Earlier, we would call it a fatal approach to life but it is much more than that; it is access to knowing what you should have had but don’t have. Today, our foundation has 2000 children; we also continue to influence 63000 children from government schools by making their teachers realise why they’ve chosen teaching as a profession, resurrecting pride in it. We are making educators understand that a child-centered classroom is wholesome and less stressful while giving them greater joy. Therefore, if we want to take India to a global platform, we need to address such issues as we cannot be happy with just 20%o of our population being educated.

September 2018

SGEF 2018

IMPORTANCE OF CHILD CENTRICITY Dr Neeta Bali, Principal and Head of School, G D Goenka World School

To begin with, we are running an international curriculum which is very child-centric. We are running programmes that are being credited by IB and Cambridge. The child centricity is intrinsic to these programmes where the teacher is just the facilitator, not someone who controls the environment of the class. The focus is more on the needs of the students and what the student wishes to learn. The process is about what the student wants to learn and not what the teacher wants to teach. Secondly, for us, the student is the most important stake holder. We believe in a three-way process; the school - the student â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the parents. Since the student is our priority, the teaching-learning is mainly determined by the needs of the children. Also, we believe that every child may not be capable of excellent academic output. So, we have provided a number of activities for selfactualisation, like art, theatre and sports. To us, every child is an achiever. It is not important to excel in one field that we think is important, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s about everyone finding their place under the sun. For example, our PYP (primary years programme) segment is absolutely non-competitive. On the recognition day, we believe that every child should be recognised for something or the other. Moreover, we have very well-defined learner attributes in the IB as well as in Cambridge. For us, ensuring that children imbibe these attributes is more significant than the marks that reflect on the report card. For us, marks are not the reflection of their ability. I think, credit system is better than grades. It is about providing a holistic experience. We like our children to take responsibility for their own learning, we instigate a lot of initiative in the children, independence and the whole emphasis is on teaching the children to learn how to learn. Our system is a completely research-oriented teaching system. So, the children are given adequate support but they are also encouraged to research on a given topic or on a given unit of enquiry. It is not content centric, it is research centric teaching. The teaching is inter-disciplinary with each other, particularly in the primary classes. As it grows to the 11th and 12th grade, there are units that are inter-disciplinary. For example, there is Theory of Knowledge which is completely inter-disciplinary and integrated into every subject. So, it is about maintaining connections. It is not so much about isolation running or standalone subjects; it is about inter disciplinary teaching and making connections.

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SETTING STANDARDS Kavita Anand, Co-Founder, Adhyayan Quality Education Foundation

We need to check what people know first and what are the skills they need to have to make that happen and what is the right attitude that they need to have. All these need to be available for people to pick up. In the work that we are doing, we ensure that everybody knows what “good” looks like. As a school, you must assess yourself and know where you are. If you want to be a global powerhouse, then first get to know what schools that are powerhouses are doing and where are you in relation to that. And then we start their journey and hand hold them for as long as they like. That's what we do. ‘We’ means all the people who have got onto this journey. So, any school which says, ‘Yes, we want to be a part,’ they become part of ‘we’. So, you have an expanding group now of 400 schools that is working on private schools - working towards this with other schools. It’s a movement and it is not controlled by me. The problem is we all think we have reached there, like we have reached ‘platinum status’. That is the general feeling that most schools have about themselves because they have not been given a standard to look at. This country has no set standard. In the UK, you have Ofsted, in Dubai you have KHDA (Knowledge and Human Development Authority) which is really difficult. In Dubai, if you do not match the government's requirement for a good school, you can be closed down. You are given two years and if you don't get there, you will be closed down. It's that tough in most places to run a school. Here, you don't even need a background in education to run a school. So that is why we are in the situation we are in right now. Also, all our schools are not run by the government, whereas in most countries, there’s total government control over schools. All private players are in, there are low cost schools, high cost schools, so there's a massive variety. Although now for the first time, government schools have a standard called Shaala Siddhi which is brought out. Now, 4.5 lakh schools have assessed themselves.

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SGEF 2018 LINKING PLAY WITH CONCEPT Lata Vaidyanathan, Veteran educationist & former principal, Modern School, Delhi

After my tenure with Modern school, Dr Pachauri had asked me to set up Teri Prakriti school, which is the first green school in the country. For shortage of funds the school had to close down this March. Along with the entire team, I joined this new school which has come up in a village called Bandhwari, where we are setting up this new school. Both the schools gave me an opportunity to look at something fresh because I believe that if you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got. So, you’ve to change things. In my wanting to change things, first of all, I tweaked a lot of sustainable studies along with teacher training and teacher planning. We changed and brought in the value system of sustainable practices in each lesson, wherever possible, so that when it is delivered, it is linked like a new subject. In each of my classes, I have an experiment going on to find how to link play with the concept in question. For example, we do subtraction with Poppins candy and whatever they take, they can eat and they can learn to count how many are left! What are we doing to make India a global hub? In our school, we are drawing from the 5,000-year old civilisation to see how we can make an Indianised early childhood curriculum. Now, after the industrial age, we have moved on to the knowledge society and we have come into constructivism and that too we look to Vygotsky for it, whereas in the guru-shiksha parampara, everybody had to construct their own knowledge. For example, they call it the headstart, early morning 40 minutes, we call it the ‘shubh vela’. It has a chithan vela, a prakritik vela, a kadha vela, a pustak yog vela. Even when we do stories, we are trying to draw from our scriptures. If I say “Mary and John”, it is alien to the child whereas if I say “Sangeeta and Lata”, they immediately relate. Why aren’t we marketing our story books better? Thankfully, Katha and Pratham are releasing many books which are good and available for less than Rs 100. The foreign stories are culturally so different, even the clothes that they wear, the way they look. I’m not against it, but we should look at how to use the volumes and volumes of treasure contained in our own culture, which will be easy for them to understand. Once we know how to learn from the khazana we have, learning somebody else's khazana will be a cakewalk. That is my current effort. People move from concrete to abstract. I’m looking at how to concretise the abstract. Learning is always beautiful. There is no discovery in learning, there is only empowerment in learning. There is only refinement in learning, there is only redoing in learning. I’m not teaching you how to float, I’m only teaching what makes it float. I think somewhere deep in my mind I have the power, the patience and also the humility to believe that I have it all here in this country. I wish I could not follow a board but there would hardly be any takers for it and how do you sustain systems without money? So, I do not have the energy to build a school, I can only run a school.

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PREPARING FOR LIFE Meera Isaacs, Principal, Cathedral School, Mumbai

Any school worth its name is well-aware of what is happening everywhere. We no longer live in ‘India’ per se. We live in a global world and whether we like it or not, whether a school is progressive or not, children are being inundated with technology from all over the world. It’s no longer an isolated thing. It just happens. We might as well enhance the learning situation for them and that's exactly what we are doing. We are trying to get the kids to slowly talk about collaboration, enquiry-based methods, project-based methods. It bothers me that there is so much going in the world and we are going back to some prehistoric time. We have done away with exams and I don’t give honours and prizes below a class/ age because then the parents jump on their children. The competition is so high. We should be teaching our children values as teachers. You fail, it's okay. It’s a new opportunity to learn. We are preparing our children for life, finally. I tell the parents that we build a foundation from here. Let us work in collaboration, school and parents. We are human beings, first and foremost. I tell them “So what if your child did not get into Harvard, he got in somewhere else, right? Make him a good human being, first.” We have a consumer-oriented society and parents have a lot of money. They lose sense of what they really want. You should just let children be. You will get very interesting insights from them. An untouched mind takes in a lot of stimuli and then we kill it all with conformity. If we don’t change with the world, we will be left behind. There are a lot of opportunities available for children. We have to keep pace with the world but I also strongly believe that we should not forget our roots. I tell my students that good manners never go out of fashion. Wishing a teacher is a mark of respect. You have to talk to people with respect. You may be a topper in class but you need to learn to behave yourself and show respect to another person. It’s about being a human being, more than anything else. Bright children will get their degrees but these things are more important. We are such a marks-driven country and that should change.

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SGEF 2018

PROGRESSIVE MINDSET Skand Bali Principal, The Hyderabad Public School, Begumpet For learning to be progressive, the community and its mindset needs to be shaped like that; I have set up a department in my school, working closely with me, called the department of progressive learning. A person has been employed to work towards the progress of this department wherein all committees come together. We are trying to incorporate the learning environment not only in students and teachers but also in the substaff, support staff and parents as well. Further, as part of the department, we have started a programme called the quality circles. It is a unique concept of critical thinking and positive thinking with different parameters working together. Another important step taken by our school is of creating a blend between the technological revolution and the traditional Indian way of learning. Research says that the responsibility of a child is 30% of the schoolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s and 70% of the parents; whereas I feel the responsibility should be 100% of the school and 100% of the parents. Leadership plays a key role in understanding the parentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; opinion, ideas and involvement; I believe schools or leaders who are worried about the extent of parental involvement are the ones who have something to hide.

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LEARNING ABOVE EDUCATION Sandeep Dutt, Chairman, Learning Forward India

We, in India, are perhaps more connected to the environment than the so-called advocacy world for the environment. Lot of the healthy things which we try to put in the curriculum as practices, are already there. We don’t look at them, we don’t appreciate them, but we need to understand that the more sensitive we are to our culture and value system, we will realise that we don’t need to focus on values, we are living with them. And that is the beautiful part of what we’ve been doing all these years. As we start getting optimistic about what we are doing, I’m sure we’ll add value to our education process. For example, you see how people care for their pets, at absolute grass root level and how, with minimal consumption, they have happiness on their face. These are some important things that one really appreciates, particularly with limited resources. So, we need to realise that these resources are within us, not outside. That’s the strength of the system; where you find the resources within yourself. This has been an indigenous part. We are at the best possible time in our lives where we would actually see renaissance. Where we would be enlightened about what learning can do to you, not what education can do to you. That’s when we’ll be appreciative. Take your learning forward.

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SGEF 2018 THE POWERHOUSE EFFECT Dr Swati Popat Vats , President, Podar Education Network, Early Childhood Association, India When we talk about becoming a global powerhouse, it is necessary to understand the powerhouse effect, as it requires you to always move ahead instead of being stagnant. It is urgent that we address the stagnant practices pulling us down. We identified two practices; first, there has been too much emphasis given to traditional methods of writing and providing worksheets. Thus, we decided to weed out cursive writing. Then, we questioned why are we making children write on four blue and red lines, when eventually they’ll have to write on two lines; the shift makes the child go berserk when they go to primary school. Also, why are we using red pens when it clearly upsets children? Usually, schools put the laborious task of writing at the mere age of two; instead, we prepare the child for ‘readiness’ at the age of two. We focus on preparing the child’s muscles through play and activity. If parents want their child to write at the age of six, we start at the age of four without stressing out the child during his or her early years. But how do you convince parents? We gave them logic through workshops, books and blogs, because no parent when given logic would want to torture their child. Often, they’re worried about their child’s adjustment in high school. However, if we give them logic about the importance of foundation years in shaping the child’s healthy adjustment, they understand it. We took many workshops and realised that it is extremely important to reach out to parents and solve their queries. And it can only happen when the teacher who they’re dealing with on a day-to-day basis is convinced. Here, the role of teacher training comes in as teachers must understand the parents’ queries and the why of what they’re doing. Everything comes down to logic and people respect doctors and engineers because they have a logic behind everything. Similarly, if teachers will provide logic for sandplay or waterplay, and why they’re doing away with cursive writing, parents will understand. They need to drop that vagueness and look for logic in their teaching instead of doing it because it is a fad or a school regulation. Secondly, India did not have a curriculum initially. So, we studied the curriculums around the world including Te Whariki of New Zealand, EYLF of Australia, EYFS of UK, and High Scope of USA to understand the best suited curriculum for India. We narrowed down to EYFS or the Early Foundation Stage. It has seven areas of learning which gives you a structure but also the freedom to plan. Another advantage to the curriculum is that the observation and assessment of the seven areas with every month provides a map of the child’s growth. For example, if a child is 23 months old, what should he or she have achieved by that time. I love that the assessment doesn’t tag the child as an A or B grader; instead it has emerging, developing, and secure. Through the observation map, parents can know that their child is emerging in a particular skill or on the right path of development or has already secured it. It also helps to identify developmental delays and provide help at the right time. The EYFS is given to the parents during an open house wherein they’re asked to use the map and observe their child at home; if they feel that their child is doing something at home but not in school, we can bridge that gap as well. It was this effectiveness and specificity of the curriculum that delivered results for our schools. Suddenly, from a school struggling with just 18 admissions because of these “high funda” ideas, we reached to 55000 admissions with 395 centres. Learning needs to be fun with logic; we developed a programme called Symphonics for language learning along with the Cambridge program called Numicon for teaching maths. Numicon includes Number Magic, a programme where children first learn to touch and feel numbers, play with them and make associations. Even in the worksheets, the programme has three formats including the figure, number and the Numicon tiles. For example, a child will count the number of balls presented on the table and then, colour the numicon tile, which corresponds to that number. This way learning becomes more of thinking rather than blind doing. We, as educators, need to allow our children to look around and learn from their environment, which is also the third teacher. In Early Childhood Association, we make people send us their best practices and we award them to promote that practice and allow others to replicate it

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SGEF 2018

The drive to move forward Prince Lakshyaraj Singh Mewar of Udaipur focused on the qualities needed to engender change in education and life Parvathy Jayakrishnan and Anushka Yadav writeback@scoonews.com

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SGEF 2018

he dashing Prince Lakshyaraj Singh Mewar is earnestly committed to social causes including education, health and environment. As host of the second ScooNews Global Educators Fest 2018 at the City Palace, Udaipur, he addressed the conference with wit and wisdom. “It is a matter of joy for me to be able to have this conference here,” he averred, adding, “Thank you so much, Ravi for having the faith and having SGEF in Udaipur.” He established an instant rapport when he revealed that he had left his speech papers designed to make him look ‘intellectual’ at the table and decided to go with what came to his heart and

mind instead. More smiles were forthcoming as he shared, “It doesn't make it any easier when your Principal Mr Pramod Sharma, your sports coach and your history teacher are sitting in the audience. But I guess Ravi has only given me this opportunity at this point in time to do a little bit of payback so they can feel what we felt when roles were reversed,” he pointed out, adding, “It would be a disservice if I did not acknowledge them, if I didn't state the fact that I'm standing here because of them, their hard work.” Declaring that he was on time today and did not need to be woken up by his school principal, he quipped, “It is not a good sight and, trust me, I suffered a couple of

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those!”He added that while he had problems making it to lessons in school, “I'm glad in the lessons of life, I'm hopefully following the path that I was taught in my boarding life.” Speaking about the importance of valuing time, he narrated a beautiful couplet…’Waqt aata hai aur waqt jaata hai. Waqt ko sambhal kar rakhiyega. Waqt bewaqt kam aata hai.’ The Prince brought a note of momentousness to the occasion as he declared, “I think it is a historic moment... Let me tell you where we are all seated, at this point in time. It’s not just a building with a lot of portraits and some nice crystal, but this was the very hall

where the treaty of accession was signed, where the Republic of India was made and the Republic of India was born. This is also the hall where some of the major conferences in developing the future of India in nuclear science, where none other than our beloved ex-President APJ Abdul Kalam was also present, where they shaped the future of this country. The same very hall is also a host to the ScooNews conference which is going to be a revolution in India for the biggest educational conference India has ever seen. ”Switching to Hindi, he revealed that it was his original language which he is “more comfortable and a little less nervous” with. “I am not against

any language neither do I wish to offend anyone by speaking in Hindi. I have only one request, we started from a se anpad towards g se gyaani, and a for apple to z for zero, but we need to remember that if we don’t speak our language, we may lose our culture. And it is our responsibility to carry our culture forward. It is through educators that our country has progressed towards a positive direction,” he underlined. Stressing that we often stand at a crossroad where the most important decisions of our lives are taken, he narrated a story which proved the futility of following others’ opinions and advice, and

trying to please all. “We need to understand that there are going to be many people who will tell us what needs to be done and how it needs to be done, especially in the education world. I think it is the belief we need to have within ourselves where the drive, passion and motivation can be created to make people and children of this country move forward,” he pointed out. Wishing success and power to initiatives which focus on the early childhood years as well as educating parents, he concluded with a couplet: ‘Hum kya banane aaye the aur kya bana baithe, Humare se acchi zaat toh hai parindo ki, kabhi mandir par, kabhi mazjid par jaa baithe.’ Much food for thought there…

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SGEF 2018

Empowering educators in every way In his welcome address, Ravi Santlani, CEO, ScooNews, stressed on the importance of working together to bring in much-desired change

n a bright sunny morning, amidst the timeless allure of the City Palace, Udaipur, the second edition of ScooNews Global Educators Fest 2018 got off to an inspiring start. The opening address was delivered by Ravi Santlani, CEO, ScooNews, in the magnificent Durbar Hall, welcoming some of the finest educators, teachers and education technology heads to the conference. Ravi Santlani pointed out that the time span from last year’s fest to this year, seemed very short. “In this one quick year, we learnt a lot of new things and made many dear friends. And you know that most of our friends – many of you are sitting here - were very supportive of what we have been trying to do through our fest - that is empowering educators in every way possible. It is through your continued support that we have managed to achieve this level for the fest,” he acknowledged. He then went on to add, “But you know what? We don’t like to rest on our laurels.”Set

to raise the bar higher, he pointed out that he and his team hope to impact many educators and energise the Indian education system. He explained that holding SGEF 2018 in this royal setting signified going back to our roots, staying true to our intellectual legacy as well as thinking of ways to modernise our outlook. “I hope this palace inspires you to contribute to the conference as much as it has inspired us to bring all of you here,” he added. He also conveyed his heartfelt thanks to Maharaj Kumar Lakshyaraj Singh Mewar of the royal family of Udaipur who encouraged ScooNews to dream big and conduct ScooNews Global Educators Fest 2018 on a much larger scale than last year. Speaking about the Maharaj Kumar’s passion for education, Santlani reminded, “Do you know that Udaipur has established an incredible lead in education and has been the proud home to

India’s first all-girls school since 1864? I can personally tell you that Maharaj Kumar harbours the same passion for advancement of education as has been the hallmark of this great city since hundreds of years. And let me tell you, his passion is infectious. Right after we met at the 2017 edition of ScooNews Global Educators Fest, he said to me that the fest should reach out to a much wider audience so that more educators could participate in it and more schools could benefit from it. He encouraged us in every way to surpass our own modest expectations and, as a result of his motivation, we are all sitting in this splendid Durbar Hall today.” Further, he thanked all the partners for placing their invaluable trust in ScooNews. “Organisations like Pacific University, Adobe, Cisco, Samsung and each one of our partners vindicate our belief that ScooNews has a lot to contribute to the education space,” he underlined. He declared the fest open with an exhortation to together bring in the change we have all been waiting for.

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SGEF 2018

Starting right Dr Swati Popat Vats practically and passionately detailed the must-dos in early childhood education Parvathy Jayakrishnan writeback@scoonews.com

r Swati Popat Vats, President of Podar Education Network and Early Childhood Association-India, teed off declaring that she loved the tagline of her session: Beginning at the roots. “That’s where everything begins,” she quipped, adding, “A question we need to ask ourselves as an education community is: do we want our future citizens to be literate or educated? Because that question will answer and be a solution for all the choices we make in our schools and our colleges. Somewhere, a lot of schools have lost their vision, maybe by listening too much to parents because of competition and they have been focussing more on literacy and not on education and both

are not the same. What I’m going to talk about today is the early years. And this is a quote that I love. It’s by Dr. Maria Montessori and she says that the most important period of life is not that age of university studies but the first one the period from birth to the age of 6 years. Prince Lakshyaraj Mewar said that there should be a course in parenting in the press conference yesterday and I was so happy because in the ECA, we say that there should be a licence for parenting. A lot of people laugh but some of the things that I’m going to show you today may help you understand why it is important for the teacher and the parent to be educated about childhood education.”She proceeded to screen a video of a child being tortured by the mother to learn numbers, and another of a child bargaining with the mother to help him to complete his homework. In the former, the child

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SGEF 2018 is just trying to please the mother so that the torture ends. This is because the focus of the school and the mother is to make the child “learn” the numbers. The latter shows the education that schools are churning out, just to fill workbooks and please the publishers’ lobby, she maintained. “If their emotions are free, the intellect will look after itself,” she declared. “So the role of kindergarten schools, pre-primary schools and anganwadis is to ensure that children are happy and they get the necessary livespace. Emotional development should be happening in those years. But what is happening? Children are stressed out, they are crying, they are tortured and their emotions are not free and that’s why the intellect is not there.”She moved on to discussing our national obsession with writing. “We are now trying to bring in mammoth changes in our High schools and universities but God forbid, you tell a preschool “Yeh writing mat karo”. Oh my God! They cannot even think of it. God forbid we will change for the 0-6 years age group. Not at all! We want them to be stuck in our age-old traditional practices. We want them to write. For what goal? These children who are right now in the preschool and when they grow up, writing is not something that is going to help them. The most important skill that is going to help them is reading. You all read WhatsApp messages. Reading is something that needs to be in place. Your emotional development, your social development needs to be in place. Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of our Nation, also said the same thing. He said “What is writing? It is just a drawing.” So focus on making children draw. When children draw, they understand patterns and letters are nothing but patterns. Let’s change the way our classrooms teach. That is my number one goal at the ECA. Focus on teaching the brain how to learn and not what to learn. So when you are selecting practices for your schools, ask yourself, is this going to teach the children how to learn or what to learn? Children learn about how to learn only when they play,” she pointed out, as many listeners nodded in agreement.Speaking about the need to enhance children’s thinking, she averred, “Children learn that the end is more important than the process and they learn that from us. Children look for instant gratification and that is what is ruining our country and our world. ‘I want it now and I want it my way’. If teaching has to be effective with young children, we must assist

them to enhance their thinking. Independent learning means independent thinking. Maybe they won’t be able to fill up books but they will be able to think and solve problems. They won’t

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look around for solutions.”Putting the onus on the adults instead of the child, she pointed out, “We are the people children imitate. We are the people who need to dress properly, behave properly,

talk properly and react properly. You need to respond to children and not react but so many parents, teachers react to a child’s comment or behaviour. So number two: how children learn is

what we need to understand and also why children fail. They fail because of our choices. We don’t encourage different perspectives in education. There’s only one perspective of that age on the

stage. The chalk talk. We need to come out of that. I’m glad that there are many principals sitting in the audience because it is the principals who can bring about this change. Teachers are

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not that empowered to bring out this change. We make worksheets without thinking from the perspective of the child. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs has to be followed. If you’re sending me to school hungry and thirsty, I’m just doing things for the heck of it. The school assembly is more important than ensuring that children and fed before they come to schools. Some school timings are so horrendous. They start so early in the morning and the children go by bus which takes them an hour. I know children who wake up at 4.30 in the morning to attend a 7.30 school. I think children are saints because parents and teachers keep nudging them ‘Thank you bolo’, ‘Sorry bolo’, ‘Good morning bolo’. If it were me, I would snap and say ‘Tum bolo!’” She exhorted principals to stop cursive writing before 6 years of age, and also to use blue instead of red ink to make corrections, in order to stop emotionally harming children. Making a plea for differentiated learning, Dr Popat Vats declared, “You cannot give the same

worksheet to a child who is 6 months younger and child who is 8 months older. You have to teach teachers about differentiated learning.” Making a plea to teach children to learn for life and not for test scores, she derided the obsession with 10th standard results, which needs to stop. “What we need to teach our children is lifeskills. We need to teach them the difference between right and wrong. We need to develop their learner profiles, develop their attitudes. Emotional development is what most corporate houses look for rather than IQ. The foundation of emotional development happens in the first 6 years,” she pointed out, exhorting all parents and teachers to read Eric Erickson's work to understand why children behave the way they do. Touching upon the very real issue of brain drain with a difference, she maintained, “We have good private schools but only 20 percent of our population study there. 80 percent of our population is in anganwadis or in balwadis or in none. So these are the citizens of our country who have not got the right foundation in the first six years. They won’t

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be good thinkers, they will not have tolerance, they won’t have curiosity. The gap between the 20 percent and the 80 percent will never ever be filled. That’s why it is our goal as educators to work for these people also. Let us have a public-private partnership. Every school should adopt an anganwadi or a balwadi and try to give them the same material that you have in your school because these are the people who are going to vote. They are going to build our country along with the 20 percent. When your emotional needs are not met, you get violent and fairness is the most important emotional need.” Requesting schools to train their teachers and pay them good wages, she concluded, “Do away with the redundant practices. Please listen to research only and not to parents. Children don’t need fancy toys. Children need what I spoke about in this presentation.” Eventually, it is not about what adults want, but what children need. (Dr Swati Popat Vats is President of Podar Education Network and Early Childhood Association-India)

SGEF 2018

September 2018

The future of smart education Atif Shakir, Samsung India, sheds light on smart devices for better education

Anushka Yadav writeback@scoonews.com

ddressing SGEF 2018 on the Future of Smart Education, Samsung’s Atif Shakir started off pointing out that Samsung is one of the world’s largest producers; from smartphones to building ships, from automobiles to the Burj Khalifa, Petronas Towers and the Incheon Airport. Then he raised the key question: “For all the educators, the most important question would be ‘Why Samsung’?” Proceeding to answer it, he explained, “First, we have a team in this country, which speaks and talks the education language and meets education customers across the country. Secondly, we offer a rich content through Knox – which is important for the education business in India. Samsung offers a wide range of tablets, devices and smartphones that are made in India. Recently, we opened the biggest factory in India, which will be able to produce 10 million devices for

the world.”Revealing that Samsung covers 96.2% of service across the pin codes of India and has also partnered with leading edtech firms, he declared, “Basically, we are offering a complete package box with integrated content, videos, AR, VR, and a device enabled with Knox. It is a one-stop solution that offers course content from classes 6 to10, ICSE, IIT – Medical foundation course, JEE main advance, NEET, Olympiad and more. The story has changed from basic videos and content to Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and Mixed Reality, and we are offering this to schools and in classes.”Averring that today’s kids are the smartest with smart devices, he advised that if we want to make them learn, we need to give them a learning mechanism that is better and enriched. “We’re offering schools a complete, controlled story wherein the parents know what’s happening inside the classroom and the teacher can track the students’ activity and their performance; everything’s secured in one place and it has turned out to be the

simplest solution in today’s time.”He also touched upon a concern of most parents, adding, “However, parents often tell us that they don’t want their child to use a smart device inside a classroom or even own one but they forget that the same student who reaches class 8 or 9 gets a smart device from a test prep school anyway. But we understood their issue and decided to create a tab that can be used inside the classroom. It will help to create a learning atmosphere in that one hour in a day where a student will use the device that’s moderated and controlled by the teacher. The smart device will come to the student while he or she sits inside the classroom. The device does not let the student factory reset or switch off the device; which means the device gets used only for education. The student will not be able to screenshot, copy, print or email the content. Thus, Knox is a cheat sheet for schools towards better education.” The nods forthcoming from the educators present is certainly a sign of approval!

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SGEF 2018

Creativity at every level Gaurav Kanwal, Adobe Systems, emphasised on the methods of fostering future skills

Parvathy Jayakrishnan writeback@scoonews.com

e are all going digital and in the last 15 years, we have seen the world go around completely on digital,” began Gaurav Kanwal, Head of Digital Media GTM and Sales, South Asia. He pointed out that Facebook was launched in 2006 and today almost all of us are on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter because they are sources of information. “Digital technology has changed the way children learn and adapt to things,” he declared. “We have seen technology adoption timelines change too. The concept of landline of the telephone took 75 years to reach people across the globe. The cellphone took much less time and Angry Birds took merely 35 days to reach a 15 million people mark!” he added, alluding to how swiftly technology is being adopted. By a raising of hands he proved that merely 10 percent of the audience had heard of SnapChat and tried it; pointing out that majority of the users of the app have been born after 1995. “Those born before don’t see the value in it. You use

Whatsapp, instead. Kids don’t use Whatsapp. They are on Instagram or Snapchat. That’s the digital divide. Kids that we are teaching today are the digital natives and we, on the other hand, are sadly the digital aliens. How are you going to bridge the divide?” he asked.When we talk about future skills, we are talking about the goals, he averred. Speaking about collaboration, communication, and creative thinking, he noted that there were different agendas for teachers at every single age group. “When you look at the age 3-5, you're trying to enhance the basic skills of children. The moment we move on to a higher class, we are looking at how well a child demonstrates a thought process. In grades 6-8, we are looking at how a child supports an idea with evidence. When we go to the next level, we are asking the child to express an individual point of view. The moment we get into higher education, we are looking at entrepreneurship, leadership that we imbibe in the children.” He maintained that the idea of our school system is to prepare children for a world that we cannot envisage today so that when they have to see a problem that they haven't seen before, they choose to think and not remember. This, he underlined, is why creativity is very

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important. “What we are doing today is we are making them remember. Creativity provides different things at different levels. It gives a break from the rigidity of test taking. One of the most important things in our education system that we need today is creativity. It gives them an idea to express their own point of view.”Citing the example of a solar system or an atomic fusion made in animation, he shared that every child would have his/her point of view in terms of how they want to show it and it also served to give them their two minutes of fame, stage presence and pride. Discussing Adobe UDAAN, created specifically for the Indian school system, he addressed the educators saying, “We are not here to define a curriculum. You’re the best people to do that. We are just going to help you get into that with a simple program. Why do we give project work to children? So that they can have an experiential learning experience. They understand the concept better. While we are limited with what we can do in the analog world we are not limited in the digital world. We have a number of use cases between a digital and a non-digital world, everything from an animation to an English project work with poems.”The possibilities indeed are endless!

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Upholders and changemakers Kavita Anand, Co-Founder at Adhyayan Quality Education Foundation, underlines the requirements for a paradigm change Anushka Yadav writeback@scoonews.com

n her speech titled ‘Can upholders of the system be the changemakers’, Kavita Anand of Adhyayan started off revealing, “Today, we have 1200 schools; soon, we will be working with 7000 schools. It’s good for me that the number is increasing because it tells me that over time we’re going to start talking a common language. Even constitutionally, our country has more languages than a country can deal with. In addition, there are even more languages in schools. If there are 1.5 million schools in India, there are 1.5 million languages in our schools because schools do not talk with each other!”Kavita pointed out that becoming the second largest populated country comes with a responsibility. “We need to ponder over what’s going to stop us from becoming a global powerhouse and what’s going to make it possible for that to happen.”Listing the many restraining forces that act as roadblocks, she mentioned the ‘legacy mindset’, “wherein we don’t believe in bringing change till things are working fine.” She added, “There is also the system

wherein all our children pass exams and we’re fine with it. Why don’t we want a paradigm shift? We need to motivate ourselves to give children better lectures and a better mode of examination.”She counts the authorities as another restraining force. “Once a school told us that they were given mobile toilets for boys during elections but the toilets didn’t even work. But the school never questioned why the toilets were only for boys and why they didn’t work. That’s where the problem lies; no one’s allowed to speak against what’s wrong. We readily accept the downgraded quality because we don’t want to upset the people in authority. Similarly, many schools have good teaching aids and they call them of pristine quality because they’re never taken out of their boxes and remain untouched by students. They keep these aids intact and open them only during inspection!”Sounding a note of inspiration, she declared, “We’re birds in a net and we can only escape this net when we’ll fly together.” She recalled one of the key influencers in her life, Hari Dang, ex principal, the Airforce School. “He gave me my first lesson of what a good adult looks like; he never said no to any child

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and encouraged every single student to be a leader. He sent all of us on treks to learn lessons of life. He’s the reason why I’m working all over the country; the treks taught me to sleep on mountain sides which helped me to sleep on bare floors with no fans as well as in complete luxury.” Anand stressed on the need for a growth mindset wherein we are self-aware and open-minded. “It happens with support from the ecosystem as it gives the freedom to make decisions without being questioned for every act,” she explained. Elaborating on the model of leadership and ecosystem wherein both should have agency and efficacy, she maintained, “If the leadership and ecosystem are low, nothing changes. And if the leader has self-efficacy but is placed within an ecosystem with low efficacy, then the change he or she brings will last as long as the leader is in his or her place; it will come diving down the minute the leader is out.” She concluded, “Thus, we need leadership as well as a healthy ecosystem for real sustained change, which is subsequently required for a paradigm change.”

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Connecting digitally progressive schools Vaibhav Kumar Srivastava, explains the work done by CISCO in the field of transforming education via technology

n his speech introducing CISCO Digital Schools Network: A Community of Digital Progressive Schools, Vaibhav Kumar Srivastava dwelt upon the power of

technology to change the face of education. Discussing the rationale behind CISCO, he shared, “When we talk about introducing a new technology in one school, we would want to discuss about the challenges, experiences and ideas with a school that’s already using it. We, at CISCO, thought if there’s any way we can connect these two people. Thus, we introduced CISCO Digital Schools which is a new community of digitally progressive schools.”The mission of CISCO is simple: to create a mechanism for schools to connect, collaborate and share. “That’s the premise of how we talk about the digital schools’ network. Schools can become a part of this com-

munity through invitation and/or nomination. We’re not doing this from a revenue generation point of view, thus it is free of cost. We want this community to be collectively intelligent enough to guide schools across the globe. Right now, we have schools from Australia, Japan, Korea, and Singapore while China and India are open for nominations.” CISCO offers forums wherein the community can talk about the next wave of technology, which is impacting school education. They can also help schools get access to technology which they believe can help the school. The network consists of two categories of school, namely the exemplar category or schools that are already using technology and will be leading schools as mentors, teaching the benefits and

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use to the larger community; the second category is the learner-leading schools or schools which want to enter the technological arena and are trying to get on the journey of digitalization. “The categories exist not to differentiate but to create an ecosystem where you aspire to be at some place. We want more schools from India to become exemplar schools,” explains Srivastava, adding, “The evaluation committee assesses the school’s profile and gives them training before the official launch in September. The CISCO academy also gives certification to students in order to help build a strong community.”CISCO has CILC as their partner in US which helps with program offerings, and Flinder’s University, Australia, on board as their first mentor. “We are now open to schools in India and they can also be part of the community as mentors,” he concludes.

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Nation-building through education Shukla Bose underlined the fact that it is with equal opportunities that we will have a robust nation

Anushka Yadav writeback@scoonews.com

hukla Bose, founder and CEO of Parikrma Humanity Foundation, a nonprofit organisation that runs English-medium schools for under-privileged children, made a moving plea for education for all. She pointed out that by 2020, 120 million students will need jobs in India but only 84% of them will be employable and this is a demographic disaster. We often don’t plan for the marginalised sections of the society in terms of education. We need to change this attitude and build a nation that provides education to each child. Bose pointed out, “Students drop out of school because there’s no value in the schools that they go to. It is said that with basic education, 71 million people will get out of poverty and global poverty will be 12% less. That’s the impact of education.” She also suggested the actions needed

for change, “We need to make education relevant for the new world. The curriculum needs to span cultural, economic and personal and interpersonal global relations. Our curriculum, teaching and learning is local while it needs to be global, because our students will have to apply for jobs globally. We need to incorporate flipped classrooms with collaborative and independent learning, digital textbooks, artificial intelligence, personalized learning, etc. We need to teach students to use their own brain and let them understand what, how and when can they learn; that makes them learn better.” Adding to her point, she said, “We need to promote multi-disciplinary learning. For all of this to happen, teachers must start learning and they must teach how to learn, they must teach collaboration and evaluation of information. Teachers must become curators of all the information that’s available for a child. Teach them love and tolerance and when that falls in place in a school system, half your job is done. We need

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coaches, not teachers. And when all that happens, there’ll be less social unrest.”Bose also shared the two models followed by Parikrma, “The first is the 360 degree model wherein we give nutrition and total healthcare to each student while working with their families. The second model is the E-to-E model wherein we take care of the children from age 5 to 25; we mentor them till they’re placed in jobs and it is good news that 100% of our students went to college last year. We have trained students with school habits, toilet habits and follow no compromise curriculum. We also have remedial and counseling programs for students who are susceptible to danger or trauma or have seen horrific events. “ She also highlighted the healthy cycle that begins with educating these children wherein even their parents develop a healthy mindset and lifestyle, which in turn makes the student perform better in school. She concluded by saying, “It is with equal opportunities that we will have a robust nation.”

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Enabling higher education gobally US News Global Education is focused on giving international students lifechanging experiences, says Karan Lalit Parvathy Jayakrishnan writeback@scoonews.com

hanging the landscape of higher education in India’ was the topic presented by Karan Lalit, Marketing Manager, South Asia and Southeast Asia, Shorelight Education. Revealing that he wished to discuss how the landscape of higher education is changing in India and how we can be better prepared for the same, Karan Lalit started off sharing more information about the organisation. “US News Global Education is the international hub of USnews.com. I’m sure lot of you would have heard about USnews.com. It is one of the oldest organisations in the United States based out of Washington DC and we publish ranking of US universities and other global universities. We get billions of visitors every month who come to our website and they get information about the application process, the rankings of various universities and we help them with the process. US News Global education helps education counsellors, international students and schools. We are

available for service to them when they are looking for opportunities in the US. We provide services to them. We use our own research and expertise and help international students to find the right university for them. Our vision is very simple - giving life-changing experiences for international students and opening up US and world universities to the globe,” he elaborated.Pointing out that in 2005, there were around 150,000 students from India who went to study abroad, in 2015, the numbers have doubled. He added, “The most preferred destination for these is the United States of America - almost 60 percent of students are going there, followed by Canada, Australia and New Zealand.” Studying in the USA tops the list because 94 percent students believe that a US degree helps them in their careers and 93 percent said that they feel confident about their career prospects after studying in the US. “US has more than 3000 universities and the top 5 percent would be the top 200 universities. In the UK, the top 5 percent would be the top 10 universities and in Canada it would be about six universities, in Australia it would be just be

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three universities. So US has a good standard of higher education and they provide many opportunities to come and study than any other part of the world,” Lalit added. Shifting the focus to India, he averred that by 2020, India would be the third largest economy and the youngest country in the world. “There would be shortage of supply for demand. There would be around 100 million Indians who are qualified to attend higher education but there would not be enough universities and opportunities India for them to study. They are going to look for opportunities to study abroad. So that is when US News Global Education can help,” he maintained, pointing out that they provide counselling services to students planning to study abroad. “We also have specialised courses for education counsellors who are working with various organisations. We conduct fairs in schools. We also have a US News global scholarship programme where we come with a quiz and the top students can get scholarships to study abroad.” Looking to the US for further studies is not a challenge any longer.

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Reassessing learning and assessment Poonam Singh Jamwal shines new light on the real purpose behind assessing a child Parvathy Jayakrishnan writeback@scoonews.com

n her talk on ‘Reimagine assignments - Mind the gaps the edTech way’, Poonam Singh Jamwal, CEO and Director Extramarks began by asking educators whether they had defined a purpose behind assessing a child. As opposed to merely making a child proficient in a particular subject, the real aim of the learning ought to be making the child a problem-solver in the future. “Often we carry forward whatever is given to us but we don’t really sit back to ask why we are doing what we are doing and what is the purpose of it. What are we trying to fulfil is it 100 per cent results or are we actually trying to create contributing empathetic individuals?” With this question she emphasised that before going into rethink assessments, we should think how to rethink learning. Speaking about technology, and people’s fears that we are not connecting with each other, she pointed out that technology has permeated our lives and enabled us to reach out to our friends from 20 years ago. “Aren’t we connecting better today thanks to technology? The same way in the learning environment, for understanding particular topics, what we usually do is give the teacher five days to actually explain a concept. However,

by using technology and actually enabling a child to walk into the scene rather than just read and imagine the scene, you allow them deep immersive learning.” This, she added, helped fill all the learning gaps of a child and strengthened his foundation, post which the child can be tested for application of that knowledge. Poonam shared an important point about the real bonus of technology via the statement of a 9-year-old who had revealed at a conference, ‘We can play, pause and rewind. I cannot do that with my teacher. I can actually take it back home and do it privately in my space without being humiliated in the class for not knowing it.’ She pointed out that if educators do not leverage the power of technology, they will be left behind because if we do not answer that raised hand in the class today, he is going to go to Wikipedia and Google and get his answers. “So, we need to be up to speed,” she maintained, adding that Extramark’s biggest contribution in the learning space is its use of Maslow’s law. “We have created a layered learning and in our ability to give deep incisive learning tools, not only have the students improved their learning and comprehension but the teachers too. Often teachers do not know the concepts they are teaching in the class as

deeply as the studied understanding using the learning tools.” She maintained that using technology allowed one day to teach the topic and four days for teacher-student engagement. “Do you know why we don’t have creativity? We do not give teachers and students time to engage and ponder. You have to leave the child to immerse in that knowledge… ‘How is it relevant to my life? How am I going to create something new out of this knowledge?’” Technology offers deep experiences through augmented reality or VR/AR with the pedagogical practice of taking things from simple to complex and leaving a child hungry and curious. Singh Jamwal reiterated, “Not only do we explain the concepts, we also challenge the way we think about the concept. That is actually lifelong learning! We will create empathetic, problemsolving children. If our premise of learning is right, automatically our premise of assessment will be right.” She alluded to the need to look at assessment not as a testing tool that judges whether the child is bright or not but as a diagnostic tool for a teacher to know how much the child has learnt, what are the gaps and how they may be filled. It is about using adaptive testing to assess a child’s learning.

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Raising the bar together Preeti Hingorani stressed on Cambridge University Press partnering with teachers to achieve widespread goals

Parvathy Jayakrishnan writeback@scoonews.com

iscussing ‘Working in partnership to raise the bar of education’, Preeti Hingorani, Vice President - Brand and PR at Cambridge University Press, South Asia, started off by congratulating all teachers and principals for creating the Sundar Pichais of the world and for the great work India has been recognised for with our people taking a lead in all fields across the world. “The idea is you are continuously raising the bar of education,” she declared, adding that to let the whole world know what we are doing, we need to do things together. “There is still more work to be done. We are talking about teachers playing the key role. From Cambridge University Press, as part of the University of Cambridge, I say that as you work for this, we come as partners for you to achieve your goals,” she added. Shedding light on the University of Cambridge which has been in existence since the past 450 years plus, she reiter-

ated its mission of spreading knowledge in today’s times. “We look at it by meeting teachers all the time. We are always trying to understand what is implemented in classrooms and how it is implemented. We are talking about a variety of things today like time constraints for teachers, to get children to do better, understand life skills, groom teachers with new-age technology - all this interaction keeps happening and we try to bring it back in the classroom,” she maintained. She shared that working around the world, their key finding has been that teachers are the ones who are making the difference. Hingorani spoke about giving teachers a partner to fall back on, weaving thoughts in content they can use, and celebrating the profession of teaching. She pointed out that Cambridge University Press understands that today digital is important, especially in the international curriculum, but it is not the sole way, adding that textbooks remain an important tool for a teacher. There is also a constant attempt to reach out to teachers, look at the best practices, and see how the pedagogy can be improved and brought into the

classrooms. “There is this great panel of 2000-plus teaches across the world and I request you to join this panel and contribute to the research for the panel,” Hingorani averred, adding, “When I’m talking about research, these are tried and tested mechanisms that everybody can fall back on.” These include All Mathematics, a global university research programme on the framework that can be adopted by curriculum for maths.Reiterating that celebrating teachers is an important aspect of their work, Preeti underlined, “We are partners in education with you. It’s important for us to have a community where there are teachers connected all throughout South Asia. It’s a multiplier effect. One teacher using great practices in one classroom gets transported into other classrooms by means of a community of teachers. We have 10,000 teachers on this. We recognise teachers every month based on the work that they are doing. Every month you have more teachers coming in talking about how they are implementing things. There’s emotional counselling happening for teachers whenever they need it.” True partners, indeed!

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From details to the big picture Sean Slade, Senior Director of Global Outreach ASCD, USA, provoked thought about missing the forest for the trees in education

September 2018

Parvathy Jayakrishnan writeback@scoonews.com

eeing off, Sean Slade of ASCD, declared that he strongly believed there was too much focus on the minutiae of education and less on the rationale, the reason, and the purpose of education. “I want you to have discussions with your staff, your peers, your students and your parents about what the purpose of education is,” he urged. “When was the last time you had a conversation with your staff about why they became teachers, why they became educators. When was the last time that you had a conversation about why you entered this profession. I would imagine that most of you entered this profession not because you had a love of algebraic formula, or because you wanted to make sure that every student has 60 minutes of homework every night in high school. I imagine that most of you entered this profession because you wanted to make a difference,” he declared, adding, “You understand that education is one of the best drivers to make a difference, not only individual but also collectively. So I ask you to take a step back from focussing on the details. The details are not wrong. The details are what make you a great teacher but the details are effective if you know where you want to get to. Focussing on the details makes you focus on minutiae - small elements as opposed to the big picture. Take a step back, look at the panorama. What are we trying to get out of education?” He went on to discuss what become the ‘trees’ in the ‘educational forest’, which we focus on over time. “The most obvious one, the one that’s been dictating our lives in the United States of America where I’m based, has been testing. We have become a nation that is being dictated by the tests, the timetables, the yearly plans. Whether a teacher gets a pay raise, whether a school stays open or not is defined by the testing regime. So then teachers become experts in teaching to the tests.” He added that the others ‘trees’ include curriculum, qualifications,

class time, professional development activities, technology usage, unit plan, budgeting, social emotional learning or STEM, arts Vs sciences, project-based learning Vs rote learning. “I’m not saying these things are wrong because they’re not but unless we know where we want to get to, then everything that we are becoming experts in is irreleveant. What is the purpose of education? Why do we subject our children, our youth, to 12 or more years of schooling?”Sharing his personal experience of working with ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development), Slade spoke about working with primary schools in Oakland during the years when schools were being closed if they didn’t give the right scores. Children were taught three hours of English, followed by three hours of Mathematics to the exclusion of all else. They then brought a group of leading educators, health professionals together to discuss whether this was the right direction. The question put before them was: If we put a child at the centre of the equation - not the test taking regime, not the Board studies, not the budget - what would that education look like? Saying no to the huge profits that would come by jumping headlong into the testing business and currying favour with politicians, they stuck to their inherent belief – “Education is essential not only to develop the cognitive but to develop what we call the whole child - socially, emotionally, physically, mentally, civically, spiritually as well as cognitively.” That led to the launching of the whole child approach to education, which they focus all of their work around. “We believe that a whole child is one that is knowledgeable, emotionally and physically healthy, civically inspired, engaged in the arts, prepared for work and economic self-sufficiency and ready for the world beyond formal schooling. What is that quote from China that they used – ‘Good at tests, bad at life’. How many of our students are good at tests but cannot survive in life.”Slade went on to make an extremely significant point – that what we want for our chil-

dren is the same globally, whether it’s parents, community agencies, school teachers, or principals. “If we want children to be open, happy, resilient, curious, empathetic, sustaining, and careful, what are we doing in our schools to help them get there? I would recommend you to go back to your schools and have the same conversation,” he averred. Pointing out that critical thinking, creativity, problem solving, civic participation, and health indicators should be the goal of public education, he added, “We believe in education because people can better themselves, a society can better itself, but what they need even more so this century are relationship skills.”The change, he believes, is already setting in, whether it’s Harvard which is looking at changing their acceptance of students to take into account contributions to others, public service, community service, ethical engagement – with less focus on academics only. Add to this, Boston college, Columbia, MIT, Michigan state, University of Pennsylvania, Yale and similar examples in India as well which are also responding to the change. “Wouldn’t you want to teach in a school that is surrounded by positivity and happiness as opposed to purely test-taking?” he reiterated. “Ask what you want from an education system in your school, in your neighbourhood, your state. Ask what society wants. Ask what your children need from an educational system, ask what the world needs because we not only have a responsibility to an individual child, not only to the neighbourhood, not only to society but the world is getting smaller and we have a responsibility to develop citizens. You are responsible for the next generation.”He summed up, “What I hope you take away from this talk is an understanding or appreciation which you need to pat yourselves on the back because you and your teachers play a huge role in society. But every now and then take a step back and think ‘What am I doing this for and am I hitting the same goals?’ Thank you for the work that you do,” Slade concluded, leaving his listeners with plenty to mull over.

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Inculcating social effectiveness Lt. General Manvender Singh, honorary director, Sportseed Pro, stressed on the importance of creating an education system that assists, accesses and assures

Anshu Pande writeback@scoonews.com

Lt.

General Manvender Singh PVSM AVSM VSM, Honorary director, Sportseed Pro, introduced himself rather interestingly by sharing his experiences of being in the army for 40 years. He was also at the military college training for two years. Post retirement, he was appointed by the organisation itself to study the impact of social media on services. Singh, with his immense experience, believes that in the past 30 years, our country has shifted from the industrial age to the information age. The educational environment has become volatile, unpredictable and complex. The link between information, education and communication is now virtual and the new system of education has dramatically changed students and education. He maintained that one has to be very careful about the invisibility fac-

tor, irresponsibility factor and the impulsiveness factors of this type of education. “This education has to be closely monitored or our children can go astray,” he voiced. Singh further added, “With such a type of education, we develop two kinds of personality – virtual and real. The educators should not let the virtual personality dominate. Youth develop the tendency to become de-sensitised and can take violence easily. They should be monitored and guided.” He also laid stress on the fact that virtual education is giving rise to the problem of lack of fitness. He provided real data to support his point and said that the physically weak tend to suffer from psychological disorders and problems and start adopting uncertain options. In order to bridge the problems, he suggested that educators should join hands with social media to provide funds for sports on a mandatory basis. This would provide opportunities and resources to the students. He gave his

own life example of how he was taught a sense of responsibility and trust by his father at 8 years of age. Lt. Gen. Singh believes that India is still in the industrial age but time is rapidly pacing ahead, making a 10-year decade a five-year decade now. He suggested mandatory sports education with more focus on organisational training rather than on an individual basis. He emphasised that it should be structured, fuss-free, scientific, fun, non-competitive, non-gadget and developed approach based. Online help should always be available but monitored properly. There is a strong need to cover spare time with such activities, he maintained. In conclusion, he underlined that there is a great need to create an additional hour apart from the regular curriculum for all round development of students. He closed his speech by saying that our system should assist, access and assure children so we can bring a sense of responsibility and social effectiveness in all students.

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Guiding international students 56

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What could be better than free of cost services for high school students and counselors?

Anushka Yadav writeback@scoonews.com

immi Harding and Nihal Agrawal shed light on how U.S. News Global Education can help school students and counsellors keen to pursue higher education abroad. U.S. News Global Education is the international education arm of U.S. News & World Report,

which is a Washington based media company. It publishes news, opinions and university rankings. The mission is to create exceptional experiences for international students, and open US and global universities to the world. In the last one year, they have undertaken various initiatives to increase awareness about US education in India. Last year, they conducted close to 12 events in major cities such as Mumbai, Delhi,

Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune, where nearly 4000 students participated. U.S. News Global Education provides high school counsellor training workshops, as well as an interesting scholarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s programme wherein they help students in university shortlisting and give them one on one counseling, helping them in their admission process. Thus, they provide free of cost services for high school students and counselors.

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Returning to the education drawing board Learned voices share suggestions on putting the spark back into learning

September 2018

Anushka Yadav writeback@scoonews.com

mit Kaushik, Dr. Amlan K. Saha, Kanak Gupta, Pramod Sharma, and Radhika Sinha were part of the panel discussing ‘Back to the Education Drawing Board’. Amit Kaushik opened the discussion by stating a few pertinent examples which drove home his point. “A bunch of us were selected to do a three-day course in C programming. We spent three weeks in this computer company learning it all, and the truth is that I remember nothing from that course whereas my 13-year-old son is learning python programming language entirely by himself. My second example is of the Hole in the Wall experiment wherein you place a computer in a class and give it to the students without providing any instruction on how to use it. The third example is of a famous race that takes place in Australia called the run for solar cars; engineering colleges set up teams of students who want to work on this project and let them work on their own. Despite all these examples, I’m disappointed to know that every school

encourages creativity and critical thinking till grade eight but as soon as they have to attend their board exams, they hit the grinding mode. Can we start questioning this fear?” Leading the discussion further, Pramod Sharma cited the example of his own school, “We wanted to encourage film direction and film making in our school. So, we bought our own camera and invited a director to come in and teach the students. But before he could even begin, children had already made their own film. Basically, we don’t need to coach students, we only need to provide them with facilities because they can figure out the rest on their own.” We often forget it isn’t just the school that influences the child but also the home environment. Stressing on the point, Kanak Gupta declared, “It is important to educate parents and encourage students to ask questions. A school needs to provide a platform to both the student and teacher to learn more.” Dr. Amlan encouraged principals to empower their teachers to provide skills and love to their students, so that critical thinking gets a safe and healthy environment.

Education in the 21st century comes with an updated curriculum. Radhika Sinha shared her model for professional development of teachers called Teacher Learning Communities. The model groups 8 or 10 teachers wherein the teacher who has learned something new, shares it with other teachers and he or she becomes the facilitator. “Thus, both teaching and learning becomes tenfold and that’s how we can incorporate critical thinking and creativity in our curriculum,” she stressed. Further, Pramod Sharma added, “A student never fails, it is a school and a teacher who fail because they have not been able to connect to the child. Thus, we need to update the B.Ed. Curriculum and help teachers become better educators and learners, which will further help them to adjust and adapt to their school’s environment.” To conclude the session, Saha gave the final remarks, “We need to change our attitude and educate children by bringing out their interest in learning. With these changes in the entire ecosystem, we will be able to eliminate rote learning.”

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Remuneration, respect, reskilling A much-needed discussion by experienced educators on the three Râ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s of teaching

September 2018

Parvathy Jayakrishnan writeback@scoonews.com

oderated by Arunabh Singh and with the active participation of Dr Jagpreet Singh, Kavita Anand, Dr Sarvesh Naidu, and Dr Sean Slade, the topic ‘Does teaching need 3 R’s too?’ came alive onstage. Introducing the discussion, Arunabh Singh said, “Rhythm of algorithm is another R that got added to this list. We have been hearing about the 3 R’s or the 4 R’s for the students. Swati Popat was talking about how our teachers need to skill students better, they need to change their attitudes, they need to make them think and she

was also talking about the problems that the teachers are facing. This is precisely what we plan to discuss here, which is 3 R’s for teachers which are remuneration - how much money we get, respect- is there adequate respect for the profession? And reskilling.” Definitely a much-needed discussion!Dr Jagpreet Singh opined, “It’s a very sensitive issue and these R’s have become very important for all of us in the education world. Talking about respect, it is a very wide concept. Is it related to remunerations? Or is it a criteria to fulfill one’s demand? Am I skilled and am I paid according to my skills? We are teachers, we are masters. If we are talking about respect, we are talking about remuneration, we are talking about reskilling, let’s talk about

righteousness. Let’s give that ability to the teacher and once that righteousness comes to the teacher, it becomes the more emphatic tool in the teacher’s hand.” Kavita Anand went on to discuss the problems schools face in teacher intake. She explained that employing a teacher has become an incredibly difficult task. She said that because of this issue, every school has to becomes a mini training space. “We need to look at what it is that every teacher deserves to get. We also need to check if the respect that we’re talking about is actually earned or it is there because of position,” she maintained.Sean Slade responded to the discussion by talking about his own experience. “I’m often travelling the

September 2018

SGEF 2018

world and talking to different ministries about evolving education.” He quoted Andreas Schleicher: “An education system cannot be better than its teachers.” He stressed that if you do not put emphasis back on the teaching workforce, give them respect, and remuneration, responsibility and redefine the skills needed to teach, the education system cannot be improved. He explained, “I also have a fourth R that I introduced which is responsibility because if you want a teaching workforce to be respected, you have to empower them with the the authority to make decisions, the responsibility to

own what they are doing. Teachers are skilled technicians. They need to be technicians not only in what you teach, but also how to teach. Each individual teacher should know their class best, their school best and should also know what an individual child needs in order for them to reach their full potential.” Arunabh Singh then broached the issue of whether teachers should be making more money. Kavita Anand explained that she doesn’t have a figure to explain the amount teachers should be paid. She knows of teachers who work for Rs 1,200 a month and there are teachers

September 2018

who earn Rs.2.5 lakh a month, although they belong to the same country but are from broad spectrums. Anand believes that a teacher should also feel acknowledged and recognised apart from the salary. A teacher getting the right amount of workload is also a part of that package. She pointed out, “People think it is very easy to be a teacher but it is a lot of work. When you don’t respect a teacher with remuneration, it has a long lasting impact on the education system and students.” She also pointed out a new trend wherein certain schools strike a deal with the teacher wherein she will be paid Rs

1,200 as salary but can take tuitions for the same students (who don’t pay fees for the school) post school and make Rs 35,000. Tuition remains a space that is completely unregulated, leading to the teacher trying to get all the students into her tuition class. Naturally, the quality of what the teacher delivers in school is never going to be something to be proud of. Anand believes that we should stop playing safe and deal with real issues. Sean Slade suggested that if you change somebody’s mindset, then they start changing their actions. “We don’t need

to necessarily prescribe what their actions need to be if you change their mindset. The reskilling that we are talking about is not delivering content. It is not delivering facts into the minds of students. It’s about developing skills that we know are going to be needed in this century and the next century. Have discussions with your staff about what is important and why they are in this job. Empower your staff to make decisions,” he recommended. Dr Sarvesh Naidu explained, “You cannot change yourself unless you let go of something. That’s the mantra that’s

been coming out of this conference. Why do we not talk about remuneration that needs to come into schools to be able to do something better? We all need to rewire ourselves and have a good partnership. In 2035, 75 percent of the jobs will not exist. So what are we teaching our students for - the known or the unknown? Many of us started with salaries that were less than Rs 1000. We were happy. Today we may get a lakh. We are content but we are not happier. So money alone is not the answer. We need to stop coming down too hard on ourselves,” he advised. Much food for thought here…

September 2018

SGEF 2018

Preparing kids for SUCCESS and FAILURE 64

September 2018

Key educators discuss the need to transform the ecosystem into one that is safe and less threatening to the learner

Anushka Yadav writeback@scoonews.com

panel discussion by Ratnesh Kumar Jha, Lata Vaidyanathan, Dr. Madhav Deo Saraswat and Dr. Swati Popat Vats dwelled upon a most important premise – Preparing kids for success: Teaching them how to fail. Jha opened the discussion by addressing an important point, “We all do something wrong in our life. Then, why don’t we ask our children - ‘What did you learn?’ after any failure or even after a regular day. When we ask them this question, they start realising the importance of it.”Elaborating on the model of leadership and ecosystem wherein both should have agency and efficacy, she maintained, “If the leadership and ecosystem are low, nothing changes. And if the leader has self-effi-

cacy but is placed within an ecosystem with low efficacy, then the change he or she brings will last as long as the leader is in his or her place; it will come diving down the minute the leader is out.” She concluded, “Thus, we need leadership as well as a healthy ecosystem for real sustained change, which is subsequently required for a paradigm change.” Taking the discussion forward, Lata Vaidyanathan maintained, “With learning comes the measurement for learning but we need to question this cycle. When we measure learning, we talk about it in tangible terms and then, equity becomes an issue and that’s why we have these high cut offs for university admissions. Learning systematically becomes a downward extension of our education. The ecosystems of learning need to be addressed and we don’t need any big data to realise the number of suicides happening every year. It is said

that every child with or without right mind is important for this country and we need to look at that a little more seriously.” Speaking on how the system can be evolved, Madhav Deo Saraswat said, “I’ve been a fortunate teacher for the last 30 years and a part of a boarding school. I’ve realised that parents often forget that learning is a collaborative exercise; it is an exercise between a learner and the teacher. However, society expects these kids to be taught; leading to learning taking the back seat with teaching taking the front seat. Parents approach you as customers and not as parents.” He further added, “We need to maintain a balance in education. In boarding schools, children are taught that learning, exams and life go hand in hand. They need to understand real life experiences as well as accept that they don’t

September 2018

SGEF 2018

Ratnesh Kumar Jha

Dr. Madhav Deo Saraswat

have compartments for rest, celebrations or for exams in life. Children might understand this but for parents, it is their distress. Children are only worried about upsetting their parents with low grades. Thus, we need to counsel both children and parents to make them understand that it is sustained perseverance which will take them towards healthy success and not their performance on a test. We track students not only as a learner but also as a person. In the beginning, the child is asked to make a goal sheet for himself which includes goals for academics, the number of books he’d like to read, sports he’d like to play, projects he’d like to do while avoiding repetition. The teacher tracks the student’s progress according to his or her own projection and if there’s a huge variation, we make the student and the teacher sit together to work towards a common target.” While discussing the constraints in the education ecosystem such as the number of children in a class or the time given for syllabus, Dr. Swati Popat Vats shared her insight on the topic, “If I were to think as an educator, I’d say none of these are constraints because if population were a constraint, we would’ve stopped populating this country by now. I think it is only a mind block. I train Anganwadi and Balwadi teachers who have 80 children in their class and when I told them that they might have an issue with observing each child, their response was ‘Why won’t we be able to do it? If I observe five students in a day, then how will I

Lata Vaidyanathan

not be able to do it?’ This is called the attitude of an educator where numbers don’t matter in a class. However, it disappoints me when a private school teacher says that he or she won’t get the time to observe children.” Dr. Swati also spoke about accepting our failures with pride. She averred, “Instead of talking about our education qualifications in our introduction, we need to talk about the times we’ve failed in school and yet, have reached here. It’s not the failure, it’s the perspective that we have to change. Let’s start celebrating failure. It’s not something to be shamed about or hidden.” Agreeing with Dr. Swati, Vaidyanathan added, “There’s nothing wrong with our system, we’re good products of the system. Why do we believe that change takes a long time? As educators, we need to become agents of change. Lilies have a habit of doubling every night; I think every educator can be a lily. Similarly, marks have nothing to do with the success rates of people. And if all of this is true, then why can’t we make play central to the entire process of pedagogical excellence and transaction? We should not focus on education qualifications. We need to change the discourse as well as the narratives around the definition of success.” Dr. Swati Popat Vats further enlightened the audience, “Educators and parents should know about the contribution of our education philosophers; one of them is Gijubhai Badheka, who was

September 2018

Dr. Swati Popat Vats

called ‘mooch wali maa’. He had the courage to teach his teachers to move with the times and motivated educators to teach through stories. How many people know about Panchatantra and what was it about? It was about a king who had five unruly sons and he didn’t know how to teach them. So, he sent them to Visnusarman, who teaches them through stories and these stories became the Panchatantra. This teaches us that we don’t know how to sell ourselves; we are constantly downgrading and criticising ourselves. In national as well as international conferences, we should talk about the good things we’ve done and how we can improve. We need to clap for ourselves because in spite of the innumerable challenges, we’re delivering. We need to remind ourselves of the rich culture we’ve always had; we’re a civilization that gave the number zero to the world. It’s time that India blew its own trumpet and that responsibility is on all of us.” The panel encouraged educators to team up with their students to find answers to questions. They motivated them to try out new things to change the ecosystem; an ecosystem that is safe and less threatening to the learner. Concluding the discussion, Dr. Swati asked educators to make the transition from preprimary to primary and then to secondary, a smoother one. “Let’s not butcher education. Let it be one body and not three different parts.”

SGEF 2018

Befriending technology Boon or bane? Educators discuss the technology reality

September 2018

Parvathy Jayakrishnan writeback@scoonews.com

hat’s the fuss about t e c h n o l o g y ? ’ Discussing the same was a panel moderated by Skand Bali, with participants including Dr Madhav Deo Saraswat, Meenakshi Uberoi, Poonam Singh Jamwal, Dr Sarvesh Naidu and Gaurav Kanwal. Skand Bali introduced the topic with his own experience as a student and a teacher and explained

how virtual reality has made it possible to actually see the digestion happening inside the body or visit places taught in geography. Poonam Singh Jamwal explained that technology has paved inroads into education because children have started educating themselves. Educators miss out on this education journey until they come up to speed and refresh their knowledge of technology. Dr Sarvesh Naidu maintained, “We think we are multitaskers. We think we have to fight technology. It

is wrong to think that we have to fight technology. We don’t. We are all wi-fi connected. Students are carrying laptops and using it in the classrooms and on the campus. Everyone has technology at their doorsteps. I don’t think in this age we should be getting into the debate of whether technology is good or bad. I think we should be looking at the next stage that is here to stay.” Taking the discussion forward, Meenakshi Uberoi shared that she believes that technology is something we have to use in our

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SGEF 2018

doing it responsibly or are we doing it purely for commercial purposes? I think it’s time every organisation has a responsibility to the community.”

favour to change the world and improve skills. Gaurav Kanwal opined that India is a big school market and everyone needs technology. “ So that’s why there is a herd mentality in the school system and every skill company is coming up with new things for schools. There are two aspects to it: Are we adding value to education in the very first place? Are we

Dr Saraswat said that one of the challenges he has faced is that when someone is from a non-technology background, everything seems so colorful and fancy to them. He had a very different opinion on technology to share. He said, “Whenever I have to decide on technology, I look at it in three segments. Ninety-nine percent of them are going to be consumers; only one percent is going to take technology as a profession. Students have to look for professions in the changing scenario because machines are taking over. Most schools use technology to make teaching as easy as possible. Learning is a sweet pain and if you give children everything on a platter all the time, it is not good. You must challenge them enough and prepare them for chal-

September 2018

lenges. Technology has brought in a lot of challenges. I’m killing the creativity of my teachers by simply giving them a technology. We give teachers technology to save time but my take on this is they have to find time. They better have time whether they are teaching 25 kids or 50 kids. We have to discuss how to make teachers more engaged with their children. Is there a way technology can make this happen?” The discussion ended with a question-answer session with the audience. Skand Bali summed up the session by saying that the technology age is like the Jurassic age because we never know which way it is going to go - whether it is going to benefit us or create more problems for us. One thing we can be sure of is that even if technology stays or doesn’t, educators are going to stay in the classrooms. The difference is that the teachers who are not equipped to handle technology will become obsolete.

SGEF 2018

Technology powers disruption Investors need to experiment with tools for accurate assessment of student and teacher

September 2018

Anushka Yadav writeback@scoonews.com

discussion on ‘An Investor’s Perspective on Disruption in the Traditional Models of Education’ saw Prajakt Raut, Imran Jafar and Nirav Khambhati participating. Asking the panel to share their thesis on where the investment world has seen the education world change, Prajakt Raut began by shedding light on the role of investors in the education ecosystem, pointing out, “Investors have a ringside view of the changing scenario in the field of education; they have a view on where and how the market is likely to go.” Imran Jafar shared his thesis as focusing on K-12 education as well as ancillary products and services. “There are two broad areas where we see opportunity for innovation;

first, in driving core learning outcomes. The learning crisis needs the Google maps of education, wherein we have the data analytics for a better understanding of the student. We should be able to know where the student is today and clearly map out the destination and the most effective path to get there. We believe that technology is necessary but not sufficient for growth in education. I’d recommend Mindspark, a personalised technology enabled lear ning engine for students,” he averred.Taking the discussion forward, Nirav Khambhati shared, “I believe interesting opportunities are arising at the intersection of two conflicting trends. Most of the stakeholders in education recognise that there is a need for change and the society’s context around education is changing. It’s no longer about degrees because degrees no longer ensure employment. It’s about having the right skills. There is an urgency to bring about a change and, at the same time, education as a subject

has changed very slowly over the last 5000 years. So, as we say there are only four fundamental disruptions in the world of education – first was the invention of writing, second was the moveable type, third was the printing press and now there’s inter net, and every time there was a disruption, it took a lot of time for society to accept that. On one hand, there’s a pressing need to bring about a change but at the same time education, as a subject, changes very slowly. At the intersection of these two conflicting trends, there are rising opportunities. Technology isn’t just about recording the offline process and making it available online. Technology is about allowing the teacher to accurately track the progress that a classroom has made.” Thus, the panel there is a need to tools that give us ment of both the teacher.

concluded that experiment with accurate assessstudent and the

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SGEF 2018

LIVE DOODLING Highlights of SGEF 2018 captured onsite

September 2018

PARTNER FELICITATION

Adobe

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ACER

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EMERGING SCHOOL OF THE YEAR (SOUTH)

September 2018

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ECA

Edvour

Goexhub

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Goolean

Edterra

Green Canteen

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Sports Seed

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NIIT Nguru

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Extramarks

EMERGING SCHOOL OF THE

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PARTNER FELICITATION

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Campus Mall

Samsung

September 2018

SGEF 2018

BRIDGING THE

GaP

Member of Parliament Feroze Varun Gandhi spoke of opportunities and challenges in the road ahead

September 2018

SGEF 2018 Anshu Pande writeback@scoonews.com

picture of easy affability, Feroze Varun Gandhi, Member of Parliament representing the Sultanpur constituency for the BJP, created

a flutter as he walked into the sprawling Durbar Hall. He graciously greeted educators and acquaintances; before leaving he even gamely helped those seeking selfies with him by shooting them himself - “I’m taller, I’ll do it.” A politician blessed with intelligence, humour, and a desire to truly improve the coun-

September 2018

try’s circumstances, Varun Gandhi is symbol of hope for new India.His address dwelt on The Road Ahead: Opportunities And Challenges. He started off pointing out that the incredible journey that India has undertaken to move forward from medievalism to post-modernism under a century is no

small feat. However, the momentum generated by this trajectory, while throwing up aspiration and remarkable achievements, has also created visible fault lines which are both challenges as well as deterrents in the road going forward. In the course of his address, Varun, who is also a poet and writer,

detailed the expanding role of the citizen in harnessing these opportunities and mitigating the severity of these threats going ahead. He pointed out that the youth today is used to the prescribed curriculum and education. However, education is the result of the innovative process where

new ideas and values are implemented in the present dynamic times.He stated the examples of Amazon and Alibaba applications and the reasons for their success, namely detailed research of the market, understanding the economic structure, mutual dialogue and understanding with the trade commu-

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SGEF 2018

nities and establishing connection with circumstances and environment.Varun Gandhi also presented a detailed and interesting data comparison of Indian and foreign communities such as China, Libya, Japan, Jordan and America. He believes that there is lack of basic awareness and patience in the Indian community that makes the innovations fail. India has the second largest number of start-ups in the world but 91% of them are failures. Discussing the statistics, he said that India has 700 universities, and not one comes even under top 200 in the ranking list. America has 91,000 PhDs in just the science department, but in India, we barely have 1,000 PhDs. A researcher in America, with the help of practical experience, gets a salary of approximately $125,000 a year. In comparison, the researchers in our country get as little as rupees 3 lakh a year, which comes to only $4,129. In addition, India lacks adequate facilities, which is one of the reasons why all renowned scientists have done their research abroad. Stating the example of Vasco da Gama, he said, “India was called 'The Golden Bird' because of its richness in textiles. At that time Indian market had 42% of textile business which is now reduced to 2% because now foreigners copy the stuff and sell it at half the price. The

main cause is the delay in patent process which results in red tapism.” He pointed out that in India 900 patents are given per year and 90% are given to foreigners. America grants about 9000 patents per year to safeguard its economy.He touched upon the fact that in India, 13 crore of the population between the age 16 to 29 are uneducated, unemployed, unskilled and school dropouts after 15 years of age. Of the educated, 60% are self-employed, 30% are casual employees and only 10% are regular employees. He added, “It’s the third year in a row that IT jobs in India have declined and only 4% of students out of 60,000 students can do basic coding because institutes are only scaling, not teaching skills.”Relating to the principle of privilege perpetuating privilege, he made an interesting comparison between America and India. He pointed out that 60% of American students have medium family income whereas in India 84% of Indian IAS officials are from higher to upper middle class families. On the use of technology he maintained, though educational applications are the second most downloaded applications in India only 19% of rural India is mobile literate.He suggested interesting approaches to remove hunger, for health insurance and environmental justice and for pro-

September 2018

tection against deadly diseases like cancer. However, the involvement and awareness of people at large is needed. He remarked, “When you mess with nature, nature messes with you.”Discussing the future of education, he said that the need of Indian society is to build a civic society. All of us are educated in one way or another, we should spread it. Citing the example of Africa, he said free education should be imparted. “Let everyone study for free, let everyone teach for free and those who have learned teach five people for free. Eventually the literacy would be 100%.”He also made a few key suggestions such as that privileged parliamentarians should give up their salaries, the election commission should be more empowered, and expert advice and education should be provided in accordance with the process of parliament. He also noted that representatives should be answerable, and election expenses should be brought down in real.Peppering his speech with several light moments as well, he ended with the statement, “India has moved from the medieval period to post modernisation very fast and we have to bridge this gap by education based on understanding simple things to make a great nation.”

Early ED Asia Launch

Unveiling of TechDive

September 2018

AWARDS 2018

PRINCIPAL OF THE YEAR

September 2018

THE

WINNING EDGE THE SCOONEWS GLOBAL EDUCATION AWARDS 2018 HONOURED INSPIRING INDIVIDUALS, SCHOOLS AND COMPANIES, MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN THE FIELD OF EDUCATION September 2018

AWARDS 2018

SKILL DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVE OF THE YEAR IN HIGHER EDUCATION

he ScooNews Global Educators Fest 2018 brought together some of the best educators from across the globe to brainstorm their ideas and practices. The inspiring fest concluded with the ScooNews Global Education Awards. The annual Scoonews Global Education Awards recognise exceptional educators, teachers, education technology companies and startups working in the global education arena. ScooNews constituted 65 categories for the awards. These awards were created to raise awareness and bring to the limelight outstanding work being done in the field of education, worldwide.

are making contributions to the cause of education, the awards aim to recognise their work and showcase it to the world. The award categories were thoughtfully cherry-picked to recognise schools and individuals who are soaring ahead in their own fields, be it by using cutting edge technology or by going green!

Bringing together individuals, schools, start-ups and unique companies that

Following recipients:

September 2018

The awards were presented to the recipients by Princess Nivritti Kumari Mewar in the presence of Ravi Santlani, CEO ScooNews, Bahul Chandra, Co-founder ScooNews and Rahul Agarwal, Secretary, Pacific University, Udaipur. are

the

awards

and

BEST AR/VR LEARNING SOLUTION

BEST ASSESSMENTS SOLUTION

PRE-SCHOOL CATEGORY WINNER NAME I2GLOBAL SCHOOL BILLABONG HIGH INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL, ANDHERI. WILLIEZ PRESCHOOL CANVAS INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL (INGENIOUS EDU SCHOLARS) APTECH MONTANA PRE SCHOOLS BACHPAN...A PLAY SCHOOL LITTLE MILLENNIUM EDUCATION PVT. LTD. PODAR JUMBO KIDS

AWARDS CATEGORY INNOVATION IN PRE-SCHOOL PEDAGOGY EMERGING PRE-SCHOOL OF THE YEAR STANDALONE PRE-SCHOOL OF THE YEAR EMERGING PRE-SCHOOL CHAIN OF THE YEAR (WESTERN REGION) EMERGING PRE-SCHOOL CHAIN OF THE YEAR BEST PRE SCHOOL CHAIN OF THE YEAR (EDITOR'S CHOICE) BEST PRE SCHOOL CHAIN OF THE YEAR (JURY'S CHOICE) BEST PRE SCHOOL CHAIN OF THE YEAR

HIGHER EDUCATION CATEGORY WINNER NAME PODAR INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION

AWARDS CATEGORY SKILL DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVE OF THE YEAR IN HIGHER EDUCATION

September 2018

AWARDS 2018 SCHOOL CATEGORY WINNER NAME SACRED HEART SCHOOL, KALYAN CHILDREN'S ACADEMY - THAKUR COMPLEX RAJMATA KRISHNA KUMARI GIRLS' PUBLIC SCHOOL NEHRU WORLD SCHOOL VIDYA DEVI JINDAL SCHOOL G D GOENKA INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL, UDAIPUR DR. S. RADHAKRISHNAN INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL, BORIVALI G.D. GOENKA PUBLIC SCHOOL, SILIGURI YS GROUP OF INSTITUTIONS DR. S. RADHAKRISHNAN INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL, BORIVALI BOMBAY CAMBRIDGE INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL, ANDHERI WEST CHILDREN'S ACADEMY, MALAD JBCN INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL, OSHIWARA

BEST SKILL DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVE BEST ICT IMPLEMENTATION BEST GIRLSâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; DAY BOARDING-CUM-RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL BUILDING TRUST THROUGH EQUITY INITIATIVE OF THE YEAR DISTINGUISHED PERFORMANCE IN ACADEMICS EXCEPTIONAL ACHIEVEMENT IN SPORTS - REGIONAL EXCEPTIONAL ACHIEVEMENT IN SPORTS EXCEPTIONAL PERFORMANCE IN CO-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES (EAST) EXCEPTIONAL PERFORMANCE IN CO-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES (NORTH) EXCEPTIONAL PERFORMANCE IN CO-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES (EDITOR'S CHOICE) EXCEPTIONAL PERFORMANCE IN CO-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES (JURY'S CHOICE) PHENOMENAL IMPLEMENTATION IN PEDAGOGY (EDITOR'S CHOICE) PHENOMENAL IMPLEMENTATION IN PEDAGOGY (JURY'S CHOICE)

THE HERITAGE SCHOOL, VASANT KUNJ

PHENOMENAL IMPLEMENTATION IN PEDAGOGY

THE MANN SCHOOL

GREEN SCHOOL OF THE YEAR AWARD (NORTH)

JBCN INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL, BORIVALI MUSSOORIE INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL THE EMERALD HEIGHTS INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL EMPYREAN SCHOOL CHILDREN'S ACADEMY, ASHOK NAGAR, MUMBAI VIDYA DEVI JINDAL SCHOOL G.D. GOENKA PUBLIC SCHOOL, SILIGURI THE GEEKAY WORLD SCHOOL RYAN INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL, GREATER NOIDA VIDYA DEVI JINDAL SCHOOL SAMSIDH MOUNT LITERA ZEE SCHOOL

GREEN SCHOOL OF THE YEAR AWARD (WEST) GREEN SCHOOL OF THE YEAR (EDITOR'S CHOICE) GREEN SCHOOL OF THE YEAR (JURY'S CHOICE) PROMISING SCHOOL OF THE YEAR INNOVATIVE SCHOOL OF THE YEAR (EDITOR'S CHOICE) THE BEST SCHOOL INFRASTRUCTURE AWARD (EDITOR'S CHOICE) THE BEST SCHOOL INFRASTRUCTURE AWARD (JURY'S CHOICE) THE BEST SCHOOL INFRASTRUCTURE AWARD STEM PROJECT OF THE YEAR (EDITOR'S CHOICE) STEM PROJECT OF THE YEAR (JURY'S CHOICE) SPIRIT OF ENTERPRISE AWARD (SOUTH)

ROCKWOODS INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL

SPIRIT OF ENTERPRISE AWARD (NORTH WEST)

SEEDLING MODERN PUBLIC SCHOOL

SPIRIT OF ENTERPRISE AWARD (NORTH WEST)

WISDOM VALLEY GLOBAL SCHOOL MEENAKSHI WORLD SCHOOL SANJAY GHODAWAT INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL MOUNT LITERA ZEE SCHOOL , MYSORE EDIFY SCHOOL NAGPUR RAM RATNA INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL SETH M.R. JAIPURIA SCHOOLS MILLENNIUM EDUCATION MANAGEMENT PVT LTD VIDYASAGAR SCHOOL SUNBEAM SCHOOL VARUNA G.D. GOENKA WORLD SCHOOL, GURUGRAM JBCN INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL, PAREL THE SANSKAAR VALLEY SCHOOL, BHOPAL

AWARDS CATEGORY

September 2018

SPIRIT OF ENTERPRISE AWARD (NCR) EMERGING SCHOOL OF THE YEAR (NCR) EMERGING SCHOOL OF THE YEAR (WEST) EMERGING SCHOOL OF THE YEAR (SOUTH) EMERGING SCHOOL OF THE YEAR (REGIONAL) - EDITOR'S CHOICE EMERGING SCHOOL OF THE YEAR (REGIONAL) - JURY'S CHOICE EMERGING SCHOOL OF THE YEAR SCHOOL CHAIN OF THE YEAR SCHOOL OF THE YEAR (REGIONAL) SCHOOL OF THE YEAR (REGIONAL) SCHOOL OF THE YEAR (EDITOR'S CHOICE) SCHOOL OF THE YEAR (JURY'S CHOICE) SCHOOL OF THE YEAR

BEST EDUCATION PUBLISHER

BEST E-LEARNING SOLUTION

BEST INTERACTIVE SOLUTION

September 2018

AWARDS 2018

BEST SPORTS EDUCATION PROGRAMME

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS WINNER NAME SUNITA SWARAJ LAKSHMI KUMAR GRACE PINTO VINITA RAJ DR. AMLAN K. SAHA

AWARDS CATEGORY SCHOOL LEADER OF THE YEAR (EDITOR'S CHOICE) SCHOOL LEADER OF THE YEAR (JURY'S CHOICE) LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD PRINCIPAL OF THE YEAR (EDITOR'S CHOICE) PRINCIPAL OF THE YEAR

PRODUCTS AND SERVICES CATEGORY WINNER NAME MAYA ENTERTAINMENT LTD INTERNATIONAL BACCALAUREATE ORGANISATION

BEST AR/VR LEARNING SOLUTION BEST ASSESSMENTS SOLUTION

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

BEST EDUCATION PUBLISHER

EBIX SMARTCLASS EDUCATIONAL SERVICES PRIVATE LIMITED

BEST E-LEARNING SOLUTION

EBIX SMARTCLASS EDUCATIONAL SERVICES PRIVATE LIMITED

BEST INTERACTIVE SOLUTION

SPORTSEED-PRO IIBM INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS MANAGEMENT FLINTO LEARNING SOLUTIONS PVT. LTD INTEGRATED PRESCHOOL TEACHERS TRAINING ACADEMY (IPTTA) HOUSE OF LEARNING

AWARDS CATEGORY

September 2018

BEST SPORTS EDUCATION PROGRAMME EMERGING MANAGEMENT EDUCATION (ONLINE) SOLUTION INNOVATIVE EARLY LEARNING SOLUTION BEST TEACHER TRAINING SOLUTION EMERGING TEACHER TRAINING SOLUTION

EMERGING MANAGEMENT EDUCATION (ONLINE) SOLUTION

BEST TEACHER TRAINING SOLUTION

INNOVATIVE EARLY LEARNING SOLUTION

September 2018

AWARDS 2018

INNOVATION IN PRE-SCHOOL PEDAGOGY

PRODUCTS AND SERVICES CATEGORY WINNER NAME MAYA ENTERTAINMENT LTD INTERNATIONAL BACCALAUREATE ORGANISATION

BEST AR/VR LEARNING SOLUTION BEST ASSESSMENTS SOLUTION

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

BEST EDUCATION PUBLISHER

EBIX SMARTCLASS EDUCATIONAL SERVICES PRIVATE LIMITED

BEST E-LEARNING SOLUTION

EBIX SMARTCLASS EDUCATIONAL SERVICES PRIVATE LIMITED

BEST INTERACTIVE SOLUTION

SPORTSEED-PRO IIBM INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS MANAGEMENT FLINTO LEARNING SOLUTIONS PVT. LTD INTEGRATED PRESCHOOL TEACHERS TRAINING ACADEMY (IPTTA) HOUSE OF LEARNING

AWARDS CATEGORY

September 2018

BEST SPORTS EDUCATION PROGRAMME EMERGING MANAGEMENT EDUCATION (ONLINE) SOLUTION INNOVATIVE EARLY LEARNING SOLUTION BEST TEACHER TRAINING SOLUTION EMERGING TEACHER TRAINING SOLUTION

EMERGING PRE-SCHOOL OF THE YEAR

EMERGING TEACHER TRAINING SOLUTION

EMERGING PRESCHOOL CHAIN OF THE YEAR (WESTERN REGION)

STANDALONE PRESCHOOL OF THE YEAR

September 2018

AWARDS 2018

EMERGING PRESCHOOL CHAIN OF THE YEAR

BEST PRE SCHOOL CHAIN OF THE YEAR (EDITOR'S CHOICE)

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September 2018

BEST PRE SCHOOL CHAIN OF THE YEAR (JURY'S CHOICE)

BEST PRE SCHOOL CHAIN OF THE YEAR

BEST SKILL DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVE

September 2018

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AWARDS 2018

BEST ICT IMPLEMENTATION

DISTINGUISHED PERFORMANCE IN ACADEMICS

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BEST GIRLSâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; DAY BOARDINGCUM-RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL

EXCEPTIONAL ACHIEVEMENT IN SPORTS - REGIONAL

EXCEPTIONAL PERFORMANCE IN CO-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES (NORTH)

EXCEPTIONAL ACHIEVEMENT IN SPORTS

EXCEPTIONAL PERFORMANCE IN CO-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES (EDITOR'S CHOICE)

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AWARDS 2018

EXCEPTIONAL PERFORMANCE IN CO-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES (JURY'S CHOICE)

PHENOMENAL IMPLEMENTATION IN PEDAGOGY (JURY'S CHOICE) PHENOMENAL IMPLEMENTATION IN PEDAGOGY (EDITOR'S CHOICE)

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GREEN SCHOOL OF THE YEAR AWARD (NORTH)

GREEN SCHOOL OF THE YEAR (EDITOR'S CHOICE)

GREEN SCHOOL OF THE YEAR (JURY'S CHOICE)

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AWARDS 2018

INNOVATIVE SCHOOL OF THE YEAR (EDITOR'S CHOICE)

STEM PROJECT OF THE YEAR (JURY'S CHOICE)

STEM PROJECT OF THE YEAR (EDITOR'S CHOICE)

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PROMISING SCHOOL OF THE YEAR

SPIRIT OF ENTERPRISE AWARD (NORTH WEST)

STEM PROJECT OF THE YEAR (JURY'S CHOICE)

SPIRIT OF ENTERPRISE AWARD (NORTH WEST)

EMERGING SCHOOL OF THE YEAR (WEST)

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AWARDS 2018

EMERGING SCHOOL OF THE YEAR (SOUTH)

EMERGING SCHOOL OF THE YEAR (REGIONAL) - EDITOR'S CHOICE

EMERGING SCHOOL OF THE YEAR (REGIONAL) - JURY'S CHOICE

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SCHOOL OF THE YEAR (REGIONAL)

SCHOOL CHAIN OF THE YEAR

SCHOOL OF THE YEAR (EDITOR'S CHOICE)

September 2018

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AWARDS 2018 SCHOOL OF THE YEAR (JURY'S CHOICE)

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

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September 2018

SCHOOL LEADER OF THE YEAR (JURY'S CHOICE)

PRINCIPAL OF THE YEAR (EDITOR'S CHOICE)

September 2018

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COVER STORY

HONOUR AMIDST

SPLENDOUR

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AN EVENING OF CELEBRATION AS THE SCOONEWS TEACHER WARRIOR AWARDS AND JEWELS OF INDIA WERE PRESENTED AT JAGMANDIR ISLAND PALACE

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COVER STORY ive folk music and wristlets of fresh fragrant flowers welcomed educators and guests as they disembarked at Jagmandir, the gorgeous island palace in the middle of Lake Pichola. The stage was set for a double delight of awards. With BJP MP Feroze Varun Gandhi and Lakshyaraj Singh Mewar of Udaipur doing the honours, alongside Rahul Agarwal, Secretary, Pacific University, and Ravi Santlani, CEO Scoonews, the worthy recipients of the ScooNews Teacher Warrior awards and the Jewels of India were felicitated amidst warm applause.

The ScooNews Teacher Warrior awards invariably bring a lump to the throat. Felicitating superheroes who do not wear capes but save lives, the focus is on the real braves of education. Thanks to these generous individuals and their ceaseless efforts, the future of underprivileged children across the country is significantly brighter. ScooNews felicitated 11 Teacher Warriors at the ScooNews Global Educators Fest 2018 for driving change in education against tall odds. The recipients were… Arup Kumar Mukherjee (Puncha Nabadisha Model School) Aditya Natraj (Kaivalya Education Foundation) Anand Kumar (Super 30) Dr Kriti Bharti (Saarthi Trust) Mukesh Sahay (Sonaram High Secondary School) Mukti Gupta (Help Us Help Them) Nirmala Tandon (IIMPACT) Rajani Paranjpe Schools) Roshni Mukherjee Education)

(Door

Step

(ExamFear

Safeena Husain (Educate Girls) Shukla Bose (Parikrma Humanity Foundation) ScooNews also honoured five educators, the ‘Jewels of India’, for their change-ushering achievements in

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Jewel of the lake The exquisite Jagmandir palace has a long and vibrant history. With construction commencing in 1551 by Maharana Amar Singh, continued by Maharana Karan Singh and finally completed by Maharana Jagat Singh I, it was named Jagat Mandir in honour of the last named Maharana Jagat Singh. Used by the royal family as a summer resort and pleasure palace, Jagmandir also served as a refuge to asylum seekers on two separate occasions – namely to Shahjahan before he was crowned as Mughal Emperor, and to a number of European families, mainly women and children, who were given refuge during the first War of Independence against the British Raj. The three storied Jagmandir Palace comprises Gul Mahal palace; an elegant facade flanked by four carved elephants on either side at the jetty entry; the Garden Courtyard and the Darikhana on its northern side; the Bara Patharon ka Mahal (palace of the 12 stones); the Zenana Mahal – a southern extension to the Gul Mahal; and the Kunwar Pada ka Mahal. A true gem that continues to shine…

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COVER STORY

Indian education. Education has the potential to write and rewrite the destiny of generations. Amidst the thousands of educators, a few shine forth and become a beacon of inspiration, a benchmark that other educators strive to equal. These are the true 'Jewels of India', extraordinary educators who are powering change. A year-round research identified educators making a far-reaching impact in the field of education and who have the potential to inspire fellow educators to change the game. These are the educators who have chosen not only to set new standards but have also blazed a path for others. ScooNews celebrated the work and tireless spirit of the five awardees of Jewels of India for the year 2018. The five awardees of Jewels of India for the year 2018 are: Dr Swati Popat Vats - Director of Podar Jumbo Kids, she is an avant-garde educational activist, a teaching expert and a parenting guru. She advocates compassion and empathy with the environment. Dr Swaroop Sampat Rawal - She is known for her keen interest in helping disabled children and her unique method of using drama techniques to improve learning outcomes. Lata Vaidyanathan - For her multiple intelligence approach to learning and total quality management in education. Shomie Das - For his vision of a more intelligent generation of individuals who develop their potential to the fullest; value the resources of our planet; empathise with other human beings and are as adept at using cutting-edge technology while interacting with people from other cultures. Ashok Pandey - Head of Ahlcon International School, he believes that education should prepare children for life calls and equip them with finer values and academic competencies.

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COVER STORY

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THOUGHTS

The importance of critical and quality thinking Prof B P Sharma discussed techniques to make classroom learning more interesting and qualitative Anshu Pande writeback@scoonews.com

Transformative Interventions for Invoking Quality Innovativeness and Ethics in Education – this was the subject of Prof B P Sharma’s speech wherein he defined education as not being about “packing the human mind with information and knowledge as if it were a container.” Discussing the importance of enhancing critical and quality thinking, he also spoke about various techniques that could be used in the classroom to make learning more interesting, qualitative and deep. “Instead of using the lecture method, we should use the figurative method to teach in class. We could use the various modes of figurative languages or even metaphors to explain lessons.” He went on to give an example to support his argument. “If, for example, a biology lecture is going on, and the teachers explains the function of the auto immunology system in a human body by saying that the infection is like a criminal and the white blood cells are the police, it would create an analogy in the mind of the children which would make it easier for them to understand and learn.” Citing his own example, he talked about how there are times when he attends a lecture, finds it good but if someone asks him about it, he is unable to explain its features. This, he explained, was because the lecture could not reach the desired level of understanding. “Our body language and how we communicate is very important. It should be more figurative so it is easy to understand,” he reiterated. Professor Sharma also spoke about how we are slowly getting distanced from our ethos, ethics and heritage. To improve the same, he suggested techniques of quoting our scriptures and discussing our histories to invoke a sense of pride in the students and motivate them to follow the values and ethics that have been followed for centuries now.

Nurturing entrepreneurial spirit Prajakat Raut and Poonam Singh Jamwal dwelt on the importance of teaching children the basics of business development Anshu Pande writeback@scoonews.com

Prajakat Raut and Poonam Singh Jamwal conducted a lively discussion on Nurturing Future Entrepreneurs. The topic was opened with a simple question – Is entrepreneurship a skill we are born with or can it be nurtured? “Entrepreneurship is not just about starting up a business, entrepreneurship is about thinking, taking ownership, taking responsibility and doing things in a way that will influence a change. It will make the world a better place. I think entrepreneurship is certainly something that can be nurtured,” averred Prajakt, an entrepreneur himself. Discussing why it is important for children to learn the basics of business development and management in the schools, he said, “Giving children an understanding of how business works at a very broad, holistic level will prepare them better for life. It’s not just about starting a business; even if they were to go into doing a job, someone who knows how business works at a holistic level will definitely have an advantage over someone who’s just going to be learning from there.” He quoted his own daughter’s example to support his argument. “A lot of times, when young people think of doing a business, and they hit upon an idea, they think ‘Oh I have created a better product’. Let me tell you a story I share with young entrepreneurs. I have a 14-year-old daughter and she makes better pizza than Domino’s. But just because she makes better pizza than Domino’s, will she be able to build a better business than Domino’s? No, because it is not just about the product, it is about the supply chain, logistics, warehousing, facilities management, people management, marketing, finance and so on. And the problem is our children are not exposed to these concepts at a learning stage and therefore when they get into the working world, they struggle to understand these concepts.” Prajakt suggested that schools have more interesting programs that make children inquisitive about business that makes them curious, for example, how a café or mall functions. He concluded by saying that entrepreneurial thinking is not just important for starting a business, it could be applied to jobs in other sectors as well and if the children are exposed to the concept of business, they will be able to handle the job assigned better than others.

Prof B P Sharma Prajakat Raut and Poonam Singh Jamwal

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Tech for transformation Lalit Yagnik of EON Reality shed light on learning, training and performing with AR and VR Anshu Pande writeback@scoonews.com

Ideas aplenty Educators enthusiastically participated in an open mic session on making India a global education powerhouse Anshu Pande writeback@scoonews.com

Conducted by the very lively Dr. Jagpreet Singh, members of the gathering were invited to share their out-of-the-box suggestions on making our country a global education powerhouse. “What I’ve learnt within the classroom was much more global in perspective than what I learnt outside the classroom,” he noted. The session saw a healthy interaction with the educators who had valuable suggestions to improve the current methods of teaching and shared unusual ideas. One educator suggested that we should lose focus on tests and exams when assessing a student’s capability. Emphasis was also laid on teaching health care to students from K-12 in order to help them realise their potential. Another educator pointed out that a possible solution to most problems could be providing learning funds and empowering teachers. A discussion on the STEM subjects like Math and Science also came up when someone asked the reason why students were running away from studying these subjects. The conclusion reached was that the teachers need to teach these subjects in a more simplified and easy way and repeat the topic in the class until the students have contextualized the same. To sum up the session, Dr. Singh added, “The prime purpose of education should be to nurture the raw, blank slates into humane humans who promote peace and prosperity in the globe, and not mechanical machines.”

Focusing on Using Technology For The Transformation of Education, Lalit Yagnik started by emphasising on the importance of perception in three dimensions (or 3D) by stating that since we dream in 3D and experience the world in 3D, our natural perception and capability of learning is in 3D. However, for the longest time, we have reduced our learning to texts and other mediums produced in mere 2D. Earlier we didn't have the technology to use 3D for learning but, now we do. Moreover, with collaboration between various institutions, we can connect two remote places using such technology. He further spoke about three aspects notably; the presence of the EON Reality, the company he represents, its area of operation and how the problems discussed during the various presentations of the conference could be solved. EON Reality has been working in the knowledge, skill and education sectors for the past 20 years. It works on platforms like virtual reality or VR, augmented reality or AR for education while the majority of other VR companies work on entertainment. The company has a global presence with one office also located in Udaipur. They work with universities, vocational education institutes and more recently, with K-12 segment. Their technology is not only used for students but also for people who need training, re-training in various industries and also with national and state level governments. The government today wants to understand how citizens can be made aware of technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), and Cloud technology etc. It is important to understand how to train students so that they become more skilled in order to compete at a global level. He explained that the biggest boon for India has been the telecom revolution in the recent years. However, some issues have come up regarding shortage of teachers, low budgets for education, complexity of what students, workers etc. have to know in order to perform.Through a presentation of statistics, he elaborated that over the last 10 years, it has been observed that even though a lot of jobs have come up, sufficient number of skilled people are not available to perform them. The solution to that is the 'leverage' in terms of using technology and collaboration for their training. Yagnik further elaborated on how to create content in minutes without the requirement of computer programming (since it is as easy as making a PowerPoint presentation). The reception of such lessons can be done on devices like mobile phones and head-mounted gears. Such teaching is done by virtual trainers in a group classroom using games in different educational institutions.He stated that most of the content shown in the videos was created by students and teachers themselves. He further added that it is not an independent piece of technology. It requires to be used in tandem with various learning management systems, student record systems etc.In conclusion, he emphasised on the need to adopt this technology in order to prepare our students as leaders of tomorrow.

Lalit Yagnik Dr. Jagpreet Singh

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THOUGHTS

Skilling up! Brad Loiselle stressed on the importance of skilling the mass population through technology Anshu Pande writeback@scoonews.com

Speaking on The Global Solution to India’s Skilling Challenge, Brad Loiselle discussed the creation of self-employment. Battling difficult times as he hustled through school and college and took up numerous jobs, he talked about how his experience motivated him to look beyond the degrees mentioned in his CV and create an opportunity for himself. While addressing the problem of scarcity of jobs, he talked about how people have great resumes and PhDs but can’t get a job because they lack the fundamental skills required to do that job. “India is in a unique situation, you have lots and lots of people, not enough jobs,” he added. According to Brad, the only way to skill the mass population that’s growing every day is through technology. He addressed the lack of facilities and quality teachers and proposed the idea of bringing top educators from around the world, under the roof of online education. Education that can be accessed within India and to everybody in India is the aim of his model. “It’s about education and delivering and access to it,” he explained.Elaborating further, he shared, “Our model is to work around the world to bring educators together, bring all education from all different education sectors and all different depths and levels of education together to one system and then mass market it through some of our partners. We have partnered with Hindustan Times and Times of India, they are both shareholders in our company.” He put forth the idea of bringing this change not only to tier one cities but also in the rural areas through facilitated education. “A lot of rural areas don’t have technology or understand how to use that, but why not bring the facilitators to those areas to do that? We have been spending time on how to solve that problem as well,” he concluded.

Safety in outdoor classroom learning Hima Mal outlined key competence areas of organisations conducting outdoor classroom learning Anshu Pande writeback@scoonews.com

Hima Mal started her session on Safety in Outdoor Classroom Learning by narrating the rescue operation of the 12 Thai boys of a football team who had got stuck in a cave with their coach. This was a case of a school excursion trip going wrong. She observed that such mishaps can be prevented if proper planning and risk assessment are practiced.She also noted that there has been a sharp rise in inquiries pertaining to safety measures to be adopted by school authorities during domestic and international trips. Since outdoor classroom learning is gaining popularity, it is important to change its perception as an aid to indoor classroom learning and to integrate such programs within the curriculum.Mal stated that the two equally important concerns with such programs are education and safety. It is important that there is a review process for the educators and mentors with parameters like presentations, review boards, and making sure that the evidence of learning is held accountable. While the wards spend leisurely time outdoors, their guardians and school authorities are concerned about their wards' safety. By citing the example of a group of students stranded at a hurricane-struck area in New York, she underlined the importance of carefully selecting the travel partner for outdoor trips. During that incident, Edterra (the organization Hima Mal represents) ensured that each and every student that it was accountable for was returned home safely. She stressed upon the "skills, means and intent" of the organisation to address the crisis in a timely manner, thereby ensuring the safety of its clients.In conclusion, she outlined some key competence areas of organisations conducting outdoor classroom learning such as expertise with working with students, execution that maximizes learning, rigorous safety standards within the program and recruitment of educators that have the skill-set required for outdoor education programs for student travel whose roles, rules and procedures are defined.

Brad Loiselle Prof B P Sharma

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The real meaning of power IPS officer Amit Lodha underlined a few rules for safe living Anshu Pande writeback@scoonews.com

The IG of Udaipur, Amit Lodha held listeners enthralled as he spoke on the nobility of his profession and narrated incidents from his life. As a classmate of Chetan Bhagat, and author of ‘Bihar Dairies’ that sold 15000 copies in 30 days; a remarkable achievement for a man with titanium nerves who is also efficient at penning his word. Lodha spoke about para military forces, armed forces and border forces, that made the people of India Rs.34 crores for the cause. He fondly remembered a Rs.10 contribution of a rickshawala from Kanpur. He shared that power for him lies in bringing instant relief to someone; for him the look in a mother’s eyes after uniting her with her kidnapped child is priceless. He believes that anyone in any powerful position should respect others and receive respect.He also answered few questions from the audience and closed his speech with the statement “Keep the country clean, follow traffic rules, respect women and leave the rest to us!”

IPS Amit Lodha

Redefining the learning paradigm Divya Lal focused on the blend of education and efficiency in technology Anshu Pande editor@scoonews.com

At the ScooNews Global Educator’s Fest 2018, Divya Lal addressed the audience on learning as a process that could be done anywhere at leisure with the use of modern digital technology. She discussed the democratic profile of digital media and its effects on teachers, teaching methods, parents taking active part in kid’s education and enhancing creativity and personalized learning for each student. Lal stressed on personalised syllabus for students to enhance personal attention and creativity. She opined that technology is a blend of education and efficiency in short periods of time in the chosen field and scene. Parents get an access to the system and they also become part of the system and it creates a learning experience within the school hours and beyond.

Encouraging individuality IA panel discussion discussed methods of enhancing creativity and individuality in students Anshu Pande writeback@scoonews.com

A Generation of ‘Yes Men’ Cometh – this was the topic of discussion by an all-women panel. Moderated by Dr. Neeta Bali, the panel comprised Meera Isaacs, Shukla Bose, Sonal Ahuja and Vasudha Neel Mani. Opening the discussion, the ‘yes men’ of today were identified as the standardised personalities or the students with no assumption, very flexible, who will move ahead staidly but will do nothing very significant. Vasudha Neel Mani described the student’s need today as anthropogenic based learning where the student is the centre of learning and teachers don’t use traditional methods of learning. She also emphasised on the self-directed learning approach where the students create what they love rather than following the traditional approach and be trend setters, empowering teachers for new learning methods. Leading the discussion further, Meera Isaacs said that whatever approach we may use, the final analysis is what matters and that is the marks the student scores. With the degree of standardisation and customisation today, the flexibility in teaching is not possible. Here Dr Bali pointed out that various modes of assessment could be introduced and a moderate curriculum can be applied.Shukla Bose emphasised the fact that teachers should stop glorifying history so that the students shouldn’t follow it and become ‘yes men’; rather they should stress on respect but no reverence. In this way teachers will develop individuality in the students. She suggested that questions be allowed to be raised to get the students more open minded and innovative.Sonal Ahuja said that creativity and spontaneity can only be reached if there is flexibility in curriculum. Let the teachers first be human beings and each child should be treated as separate individuals. Given the mode of learning, knowledge should be first inwards and then outward. Learning should understand, acknowledge and relate to the individual child. Vasudha Neel Mani answered an audience question that in school curriculums are revised every two years but the skills are same for the teachers because we are working for the students. Complete analysis in all the areas of progress is needed to ascertain what he wants and excels in. The discussion was concluded by the statement “Attitude is everything, let’s change our attitude and great learning will happen to our children.”

Dr. Neeta Bali Divya Lal

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GUEST POST

How can a

teacher make a

mark? Dr. Harleen Kaur shares the essential qualities that go into making a good teacher, great Dr Harleen Kaur is Founder Principal Mount Carmel International School, Naraingarh (Ambala, Haryana)

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very teacher wants to be a good teacher, but what is this myth about being a "good teacher"? What are they like?As a teacher once myself and a school head, I believe that if a teacher possesses the following characteristics and qualities, s/he can become even better… 1

Good personality and grooming for increased professionalism:

Students always get attracted to teachers with good personality which leads to better communication, understanding, and ultimately good results. Everyone can have a good, decent, likable, and presentable personality. Just dress sensibly well, smell good, and be a little gentle, that's all. Our dress influences our students as well. Without a doubt, teachers are role models for their students, so when teachers dress professionally it sends important messages to students. We teach our students not just about the academic subject, but also how an adult professional looks and behaves. By dressing professionally, we are giving them an implicit message about how we see ourselves and our task. The more professionally we dress, the more we tell our students they are important. This might seem like a stretch to some, but the connection between our appearance and the significance of an occasion rings true in so many places. We wear suits and dresses to weddings. We get a haircut and dress attractively for a first date. We even dress up our gifts in fancy paper and packaging to make it seem more special. Our character doesn’t change in these settings, but our appearance does, which communicates how we are assigning significance to any given setting. Dress shabbily; students remember the clothes. Dress impeccably; students remember the teacher"

Deep knowledge and growth:

Another important characteristic of a good teacher is his in-depth knowledge of the teaching subject. There is a saying that ‘a teacher is only as good as his knowledge is’. If he himself lacks knowledge of a certain subject that he teaches, he is never going to make a name for himself. So, sign up for only those subjects which you have expertise in; and it is a moral duty too. 3

Congenial and approachable:

A good teacher can be firm while taking the class but amicable with the students outside the class. Many students think of their teachers as their enemies, but if a teacher has the above qualities students will love to talk and share their problems with them without being hesitant. But that does not mean you become too personal with the students as it can lead to conflicts of interest and loss of credibility. If students start inviting you to movies and parties, you have to take a step back. For me, being friendly has included activities like playing basketball with the class, going for an arrangement class and talking to them about their likes and dislikes. This not only helps them open up but they develop good conversation skills, and discipline is managed as their energies get channelised. 4

Good communication and l istening skills:

If a teacher’s communication skills are good, she can convey her lectures with better skill and results. If she is a good speaker, her class strength increases automatically. People love to hear a person who can speak well. Apart from being a good communicator, a good teacher should also have the characteristic of being an

even better listener. A good listener will always have many friends and fans. When a good teacher develops this patient quality in herself, she starts to become a great teacher. 5

Sense of humour:

A person generally teaches the next generation and as they are younger, they are expected to have more fun in the class too. So, a good teacher is the one who can keep up his sense of humour, and with his strong communication skills and personality, can also maintain the discipline of the class. Teachers should be able to have a deep conversation with the kids and, at the same time, joke around with them too. 6

Compassionate motivation:

Only when a teacher is compassionate will students love him, respect him, apply themselves and bring greater output and results. As a teacher we motivate our students to do well in studies but if we are compassionate towards our students, if we truly feel for them and their performance, we can communicate and motivate them better. 7

Commitment and innovation:

A committed teacher will always bring the best out of the back-benchers and will be an asset to the institution. A teacher should also teach innovatively to bring best results. A good teacher will adjust his approach to manage children from different backgrounds. Teachers must stay abreast of innovations including the use of new technologies while teaching and for home assignments. Students will be more responsive to the contemporary teacher than one who got stuck in the last millennium.

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TAKE2

Teacher’s SPECIAL

Teachers are warriors, superheroes, artists and game changers. ScooNews appreciates teachers and educators across the globe for their zeal, warmth and strength through these quotes:

Anushka Yadav writeback@scoonews.com

“A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.”

“Not all superheroes have capes, some have Teaching Degrees.

Henry Brooks Adams

“Great teachers empathise with kids, respect them, and believe that each one has something special that can be built upon.”

Unknown

“The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind.”

Ann Lieberman

“Good teaching is more a giving of right questions than a giving of right answers.”

“A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.”

osef Albers Khalil Gibran Henry Brooks Adams

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READ ScooNews brings you stories of teachers who stood against all odds because giving up is never an option for a true teacher.

INSPIRING TALES: Here are Top 5 biographies and autobiographies of educators who inspired the world: It Takes a School: The Extraordinary Success Story That Is Changing a Nation by Jonathan Inspired from Starr’s own story, the book traverses through the story of David and Goliath proportions, and how an American hedge fund manager created a unique school, Abaarso. Situated in Somaliland, the school has students who have fought against odds and come to achieve success beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. As Starr’s abstract vision turns into a transformative reality, he comes across issues such as broken promises, skeptical and clan-based society that’s learning to give way to trust. Apart from Starr’s, it is the story of the students themselves. With over 40 graduates placed in top American universities, Abaarso sends Somaliland a strong message that when given education, children are capable to compete with anyone in the world. A story of a teacher and his belief in the power of education, It Takes a School is an inspirational read.

1 The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan by Robert Kanigel Also adapted into a movie, Kanigel’s novel journeys through the relationship between a young Indian mathematics genius, Ramanujan, and his tutor at Cambridge University, G.H. Hardy, in the years before World War I. The reader is guided through their eyes on an extraordinary journey through numbers theory. The language of symbols and infinitely large and small regions of mathematics are presented with clarity for the convenience of the general reader.

4 Teacher Man by Frank McCourt Pulitzer Prize-winning, mega-bestselling author, Frank McCourt wore his celebrity with extraordinary grace. Teacher Man is a reflection of his grace and shows how McCourt's 30-year teaching career shaped his second act as a writer. Teacher Man is an urgent tribute to teachers everywhere. Using his irreverent wit and compelling honesty, McCourt records the triumphs, trials and surprises he faced in the classroom, five days a week and five periods per day. An exhilarating experience, Teacher Man journeys through the storyteller’s efforts at developing his unparalleled ability to tell a great story as he worked to gain the attention and respect of unruly, hormonally charged and indifferent adolescents.

2 Beautiful Child: The True Story of a Child Trapped in Silence and the Teacher Who Refused to Give Up on Her by Torey Hayden An unsettling story of a mute, scruffy and almost catatonic seven-year-old, Venus, with her special education teacher who is determined to save her from the silence and abuse of the world. Venus’ unresponsiveness and violent outbursts makes Hayden search for signs of deafness, brain damage or mental retardation. Through first-person narrative, Hayden expresses her own thoughts, worries and reflections on the strained relationship with a mismatched classroom aide while reflecting on the group and individual dynamics of such children.

3 A Teacher’s Tale by Bob Hammann Residing with his son, daughter-in-law, and grandson in rural Iowa, Bob retired from public school administration in 2004. He spends his time preaching at area churches, teaching adjunct math classes at a local university, and golfing anytime he can get it in. Chronicling through his first teaching assignment, A Teacher's Tale follows Bob's humorous stories from his early life as a teacher providing a fun and inspiring glimpse into the world of education in the 1970s.

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TECH IT OUT Apps that have been recommended by teachers for teachers

FOR THE TEACHERS, BY THE TEACHERS: If you are a teacher who’s looking for some apps that will interest you and your students, read on... Here are 5 apps that are recommended by TED-eds, that every teacher can use to make the classes more creative and interesting.

Draw and Tell

The app increases the creative confidence in kids of all ages. One has to draw something, tell a story about it and share their creation. For TED-Ed community member Ginnie Harvin Pitler, this app is a classroom favorite. “I’m an elementary teacher and believe in creation apps over consumption apps,” she says.

Oxford Dictionaries

A good dictionary is the requirement in every classroom. For TED-Ed community member Nuria Carballal, Oxford Dictionary works well. Meanwhile, TED-Ed community member Chie Sipin Bjarenas recommends Dictionary.com. “It’s a quick way to answer ‘what does [insert unfamiliar word] mean?’” she says.

Educreations

The app creates videos for learning. “it is a great tool for explaining math strategies with voice, pen and screen recorder,” says TED-Ed community member Melissa Julian. ”It also lets students make learning resources for other children to use.”

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Edmodo

Every teacher looks for a way to exchange feedback. This app helps in providing clear feedback and also makes it easy for students to respond. “The app makes it possible to give students constructive feedback in a 1:1 manner,” says TED-Ed Innovative Educator Jennifer Hesseltine.

Explain Everything

An interactive whiteboard, “It’s one of the most versatile apps you can have in your toolbox,” says TED-Ed community member Caroline Taylor-Levey.

THE FIVE BEST ALTERNATIVES TO PHOTOSHOP

Anshu Pande writeback@scoonews.com

1 Paint One of the fastest free photo editors for windows, paint.net was started as a substitute for Microsoft Paint. But with its new features like advanced photo editing tools, automatic filters, manual editing tools for fine adjustments and multiple layers, it has become the most used software. It is excellent for quick edits, crops and daily photo editing.

2 Photo Pos Pro Thank us later for introducing you to Photo Pos Pro if you haven’t heard of it. Offering interfaces for both, beginners as well as advanced users, this software promises you the best of both worlds. It offers layer masks and multiple layers, one click filters and excellent clone and healing brushes. Designed to fulfill every need, it also contains colour-refining tools. It supports multiple-editing and scripts to save time and you can also import images directly from a camera or scanner. The software also comes with plugins for extra frames and templates.

3 Pixlr Editor When we talk about Pixlr, it is no ordinary alternative. If you’ve worked with Gimp, PaintShop Pro, or Photoshop, you will feel nothing different while working on this. You get all the Photoshop-style tools here; you get sharpen, un-sharp mask, blur, noise, levels and curves as well as the

artistic filters and automatic optimization options. This online image editor also comes with a toolbox with brushes, fills, selection, healing and clone stamp tools – all customisable via a ribbon above the workspace.

4 Adobe Photoshop Express Encompassing the best features from Adobe and its expertise in photo editing, Photoshop Express is a light version of the standard photo editor and is free for your browser. It is even downloadable for Windows, iOS and Android. It packages useful pictureenhancing, sleek, minimalist interface, sliders that enable you to adjust contrast, exposure and white balance of your photo dynamically and automatic options for one-click adjustments.

5 GIMP GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program. This free alternative provides numerous options for no-cost image editor. It encompasses wide toolset and options like painting tools, colour correction, cloning, selection, and enhancement. It gives Adobe’s look and feel, making it easier to be used. You'll also find a very capable file manager built in, along similar lines to Adobe's Bridge. This is a great option if you’ve got a limited budget or want to take a step away from Photoshop.

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TECH IT OUT

TEACHER AIDS

Anushka Yadav editor@scoonews.com

Top 5 forums where teachers and educators can share resources and discuss issues and solutions with their fellow professionals:

A to Z Teacher Stuff:

It is a site designed by teachers and for teachers, helping them find online resources more quickly and easily. Find lesson plans, thematic units, teacher tips, discussion forums for teachers, downloadable teaching materials and eBooks, printable worksheets and blacklines, emergent reader books, themes, and more.

The Teacherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Corner:

A platform to share inspirational stories, discuss primary and secondary education, The Teacherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Corner allows teachers to learn about educational technology while providing them a forum to share worksheets and rich teacher resources, and discuss lesson plans.

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TeAchnology:

For over a decade, TeAchnology has been providing free and easy to use resources for teachers dedicated to improving the education of today's generation of students. Featuring 46,000+ lesson plans, 10,200 free printable worksheets, rubrics, teaching tips, worksheet makers, web quests, math worksheets, and thousands of other great teacher resources, it is a helpful technology oriented forum for kindergarten and high school teachers.

Teachers.net Chatboard:

A useful platform and chatboard for educators who wish to share or discuss everything, from the classroom to their personal lives.

Greatteacher.net: Communicate with teachers from all over the world on this helpful discussion board. The chatroom is available for more interactive discussions between users.