ScooNews - First Anniversary Issue Vol 2 issue 1 August 2017 by ScooNews

Volume 2

Issue 1

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

August 2017 IGNITING MINDS

Margaret Mead

STRAIGHT TALK

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED by Ravi Santlani on behalf of EduPulse Media Pvt. Ltd

Editor Nichola Pais Deputy Editor Parvathy Jayakrishnan Assistant Editor Anjana Deepak Reporter Ashima Sharma, Anuj Kr. Website Team Vaibhav Ramchandani, Pranav Sharma, Ojas Godatwar, Gaurang Mandhana Art Direction Rexsu Cherry Design CP Sharma Editorial Advisor Shobhita Rajgopal, Meenakshi Uberoi, Neeta Bali Pics Pressfoto Pixabay, Shutterstock

Founder & CEO Ravi Santlani Vice President Operations Vinay K Singh Vice President PR Vanya Bhandari Manager-Sales & Marketing Virendra Kashyap Asst. Manager Business Development Abhishek Tomar Asst Manager Back Office Jaspreet Kaur

EDITORIAL OFFICE EduPulse Media Pvt Ltd, J-3, Jhalana Institutional Area, Second Floor, Jaipur 302004 India Email: editor@scoonews.com FOR ALL SALES QUERIES Virendra Kashyap +91-9953219439 Abhishek Tomar +91-9811756705 sales@scoonews.com FOR SUBSCRIPTION +91-9784447860 subscribe@scoonews.com PRINTED AND PUBLISHED by Ravi Santlani on behalf of EduPulse Media Pvt Ltd PRINTED AT Jaipur Printers Pvt Ltd, MI Road, Jaipur 302001, Rajasthan, India and PUBLISHED AT EduPulse Media Pvt Ltd, J-3, Jhalana Institutional Area, Second Floor, Jaipur 302004 India Published for the month of August 2017 Total number of pages 172, including Covers

Nichola Pais

Hey Educator, Your Role Just Got Bigger!

ooks, computers, materials, schools that are government-run or privately-managedâ&#x20AC;Ś none of these factors impact children's education outcomes as much as the soft inputs - namely, innovations in methods and practices of teaching. The fact that, even after four years of schooling, large numbers of children in both private and government schools still do not know the basics of language and maths, has led the Department of School Education and Literacy to shift focus from universalisation of access to ensuring quality learning. Class-wise learning outcomes have been prepared to indicate the expected levels of learning that children should achieve, which are being shared with teachers and parents and have also been incorporated in the Central Rules to the RTE Act, 2009. While the focus is currently on foundational literacy and numeracy skills in Class 1 and 2 via programmes like Padhe Bharat Badhe Bharat, under Rashtriya Avishkar Abhiyan for Math and Science for Class 6-8, mentoring sessions are conducted, clubs organised and professional development of teachers provided. When it comes to innovative learning practices, Education Secretary Anil Swarup has plunged right in, travelling across India to identify, recognise and reproduce successful models from different states across the country. Five national workshops have already been launched where these models were displayed for states, to be scaled and replicated. While the 'teaching to the test' approach is crucial in order to meet certain standards, acquire information and achieve a score, the eventual aim of education goes beyond that. It is not just producing a generation that can give the right answers that matters but the creating of confident thinkers who can understand, apply and appreciate their own learning processes. Education develops a student's self-efficacy, the belief in one's ability to succeed in specific situations or accomplish a task. This plays a key role in the way one approaches goals, tasks, and challenges. Self-efficacy can influence academic motivation, learning, and achievement, which makes it vital to a student's success. The role of teachers and educators extends to stimulating critical thinking and comprehension, and increasing student self-efficacy via various approaches such as dialogue, open-ended questioning, positive reinforcement, and the flipped classroom. Whether it's being available to students who need that extra boost even outside of regular school hours, encouraging students to work problems out loud to encourage deliberate thinking and reasoning, or prompting them to encourage confidence in reasoning, an educator can and must use various strategies to increase student confidence in comprehension and analysis. Truly, if a teacher simply wanted a job, s/he would have joined a bank, right!

FIND US ON

August 2017

CONTENTS

162 LIFE SKILLS : The Classroom of Life

16 #Unconference Thoughts Afire! Global Thought Leaders from academia, public policy, government, spirituality, philanthropy and more will speak their brilliant minds at the ScooNews Global Educators Fest 2017 Unconference. Be there!

32 Just Blogging : Power of Experiential Learning

EDUTORIAL : EDU-NATION 2017 Blotted yet Buoyant

Inspiring individuals who have been ‘educated’ the hard way and reached great heights…

168 INSPIRATION For Better & Verse Classic inspirational poems guaranteed to enliven the soul

August 2017

PHILANTHROPY : Education’s Biggest Benefactors

TESTIMONIALS REFRESHING CONTENT I would like to express that it has been a long time since I have read a magazine wherein the content is precise and directly related to useful information, keeping the wider range of readers in mind ie. from the perspective of educators, counsellors, parents and students.

into which the magazine has been divided, is superb. It will go a long way. I strongly feel that very soon this magazine would capture a very big chunk of the market. Best wishes to the ScooNews team for a great journey ahead!

these parameters and changes and there is a huge time lag between NCERT and SCERT. State boards are already losing a lot because of the fact that all central exams like IIT are based on NCERT guidelines. Robin Aggarwal, Director, Learning Path

Dr Ravinder Singh Panwar, Principal,

School, Chandigarh

Podar International School, Dhule

Re ScooNews April 2017, I liked the detailed information on all boards, the editor's point blank views on requirement of a single board in country, research on views of the new generation by Varkey's Foundation, focus on vocation in vacations, and information about a boy securing a top US university scholarship (motivation for others to start working in this direction). In addition to these, I liked the pitch of unconference/ idea-sharing versus one-sided lecture approach in reference to your forthcoming global meet. Overall I enjoyed reading the whole magazine and look forward to its next edition. Thanks for a refreshing educational magazine. Appreciation for the whole ScooNews team! Anirudh Sachdeva, Director, Holy Child Public School, Rewari

GREAT IMPRESSION The first time I saw your magazine was at the Global Education Leaders' Summit 2016 at IIT Delhi in December 2016. I was one of the speakers for the teachers' assessment. I was impressed by your concept of win-win strategy of title page on both sides with reverse print which gives a message of being in front from wherever you begin. We have subscribed to your magazine for our library. The first copy was on my table yesterday. The collection and selection of different sections,

SINGLE BOARD, BAD IDEA! I read your editorial on the need to create single school board in India. I quite disagree with you. I was also of the same opinion earlier but I have changed my opinion now. Here’s why… 1. India is a diverse country and the states can make their own structures regarding education. I witnessed this on a visit to remote parts of Himachal Pradesh. I saw a school with 20 students with two teachers. If one were to adhere to CBSE standards that school could have never existed! Central government does not, at times, understand this point and is very Delhicentric in nature. 2. CBSE and ICSE compliances are so onerous at times which results in high fee structures today. Moreover both the boards are managed by bureaucracy today and are not responsive to the changing needs of schools today. 3. Do we want to create a situation where one person will decide the future of school education system in our country? Just look at the seesaw changes in CBSE regulations. Where I agree with you is that the MHRD should create learning levels and rubrics for each level - already done so by them. However, the problems lie in the fact that SCERT are not responsive to

MOTIVATOR Recently picked up a copy of your magazine from a friend in Patiala and read with interest all your articles, cover stories and editorials. I must say it is a refreshing change. With media making it difficult to steer clear of negative reportage, your magazine has come as a gush of fresh morning breeze. The global teacher coverage was a motivator and it was good to know the amazing work teachers across the world are doing. I am a school principal and the management has decided to send you a bulk subscription request soon. Gurvinder Kaur, Amrtisar

DIFFERENTLY ABLED CHILDREN I have been reading your magazine since the last 5 months and I am hooked. But I also have a complaint. Your focus seems to be mainstream private schools, assumedly because a chunk of students are enrolled in the same and you want to reach them with the inspiring stories that you carry. But allow me to draw your attention to another group of children who, thanks to weak government policies, are a neglected lot. I am talking about differently abled children, who account for a huge population among Indian children. Please be kind to them also. They have a right to education too and they are Mother India’s children too. Savita Dhule, Pune

TALK TO US

SEND AN EMAIL: yourstruly@scoonews.com Please do not send attachments

SEND A LETTER: Letters to the Editor must include writer’s full name, address and home telephone, may be edited for purposes of clarity or space, and should be addressed to the nearest office:

JAIPUR: EduPulse Media Pvt Ltd, J-3, Jhalana Institutional Area, Second Floor Jaipur 302004 India

August 2017

Please recycle this magazine and remove inserts and samples before recycling

ON1E YEAR ON

IDEAS UNPLUGGED

Merging Creativity With Literacy

Ravi Santlani

GAZING BACK,

POWERING FORWARD

INCEPTION OF SCOONEWS he education scene in India has been extremely vibrant in recent years. However, there was a lack of a single medium that could help educators discover and absorb all the exciting new developments, as news and associated information was scattered all over the internet.

ScooNews was conceived with the singular vision of providing useful content to educators. Living up to our vision, the initial days were focussed on aggregating quality content from across the world, packaging it in an interesting, easy to read format and serving it to key stakeholders in education in a manner that inspired action. The idea was to be an enabler in moulding the future of India. Today, I am proud to share that we have 12000+ education-centric, 100% unique stories on our website and 12 glorious print issues of the magazine with a combined circulation of 6 lakh copies.

EDU OBSERVATIONS In my time working in this sector, I couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t help but make a few observations. Here are some of them, in no particular order... Firstly, there are some great initiatives being undertaken in India but unfortunately these are being criticised because somehow the bench-

August 2017

In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something else. -Lee Iacocca

mark is the education system in developed countries. The truth is that implementing similar models in India is simply not possible as there exists a vast contextual difference between India and other countries. When we look with awe at successful Indians across the globe, who are at the top of their game in various fields, we conveniently forget that they are the products of this very same education system which is so roundly criticised today. There is no need to reinvent the entire education system and get influenced by the western world; all we need to do is make incremental changes and move towards perfection. We need to integrate our current education curricula with academics, sports, alternative learning, experiential learning, and skilling to make our students truly global citizens…Much like what Sonam Wangchuk is successfully doing at his school in Ladakh. Sadly, most of the noise surrounding the education sector is about how teachers are gradually taking a back seat at school fearing a backlash from parents, school authorities or even social media if they go beyond the brief. Did we not respect and obey our teachers when in school? The situation, unfortunately, is vastly different today. I have also observed that rather than opening the doors to the world, gadgets have confined children indoors. Playing sports, meeting friends, cycling together and other social interactions have taken a back seat. Engaging with games, phones, internet and tablets will have far reaching effects on the kind of adults they will become. The future of education itself has never been brighter. As Anil Swarup, Secretary, Department of School Education and Literacy puts it, the key lies in discovering where innovative ways of teaching are being practised in different states. Instead of importing ideas from Finland, England, Swaziland or Poland, it is these ‘homeland ideas’ where these models are implemented that carry more conviction and can be scaled and repli-

cated across India. Today teachers are experimenting and that is a positive sign of impending change. The biggest proof of positive change is government officers admitting their wards in state run schools when they can easily secure admission in any international school of their liking.

POWER OF COMMUNICATION If I were to point out a single takeaway from my one-year journey with ScooNews, it would definitely be that communication as a tool is clearly missing in the school eco system. There is a gaping need for a communication officer in every educational institute. I say this based on research conducted personally while meeting hundreds of edtech companies from India and abroad, which revealed that less than 1% mails sent to educators were ever answered. The channel of communication between educators and the people who can bring innovation into their organisation is very weak. As a matter of fact, school security is instructed not to let any edtech start-ups enter the school without a prior appointment. Ironically, most requests for appointments either by calling or emailing go unanswered. A chance conversation with my doctor gave me a solution to this predicament. He said that he had designated a different time slot to attend to medical representatives as he was aware that they were in his clinic not only to push their products but also to share the most recent developments in medical diagnostics and treatment. Similarly, I believe that education organisations should have a designated time to meet innovators in order to learn about the new methodologies and trends in educating the future of India. The last year has been phenomenal but I also believe that the days to come hold far more excitement and promise. In a mere 12 months we found our feet as a digital news platform, then moved on to create a promising presence in print and events, and now we are at the cusp

of starting ScooNews TV – a one of its kind digital channel dedicated to education. Today video content is king, not only because it saves time but also because it can convey the equivalent knowledge of a three-page print story in a matter of minutes. Capitalising on this trend, we will work towards making ScooNews TV the most preferred video hub for educators by creating a bank of endless knowledge right from the most successful educators to the newest entrants in the education domain. In the days to come, I hope to meet many more visionary educators, understand the needs of the education sector and exercise my power to serve the same. The vision is to make ScooNews India’s largest education content platform which will inspire millions of educators to deliver exceptional education to the future leaders of India. The first year of ScooNews is culminating in our debut event Global Educators Fest which is already creating waves in the education sector nationally and globally. The theme this year is ‘Unlearn the Conventional’ where we seek to challenge the legacy in education and encourage educators to unlearn in order to relearn. After this event we intend to organise many such events in different parts of our country and the world. We will soon be sharing our annual calendar of events on our website and the magazine. During this journey I have met many people from across the world and have learnt a lot from them. Some became my mentors, who not only provided insights, but inspired me to challenge myself and think big. ScooNews has tasted substantial success in a mere one year and the entire credit goes to some phenomenal teamwork where every single member has pulled more than his/her weight to make our success a possibility. I heartily thank my team and look forward to increased vigour in making the second year of ScooNews a more impactful one.

August 2017

ON1E YEAR ON

EDUTORIAL

Merging Creativity With Literacy

EDU-NATION 2017

BLOTTED yet

BUOYANT Nichola Pais editor@scoonews.com

The real success of the Indian educational system would lie in its ability to equip citizens for the ‘struggle for life’

boasting the world’s largest tertiaryage population and second largest graduate bank. Currently pegged at a $100 billion, the education market in India is anticipated to touch a whopping $180 billion by 2020. While the school segment is currently valued at $52 billion, the higher education system enrols over 70 million students, witnessing a spend of over Rs.46,200 crore (6.93 billion).

he sharp contrasts in the Indian education scenario never fail to amaze…and, equally, to stymie. More than 260 million students enrolled in its 1.5-plus million schools…and yet quality basic education remains elusive. One of the largest higher education systems in the world…and yet only just approaching the goal of universal primary education more than a hundred years after it was introduced in the Gokhale Bill of 1911. Currently, the second largest market for e-learning after the US…while the ground reality sees only 47.8% of class V students able to read a class II textbook.

GOVERNMENTAL THRUST

Growth is, nevertheless, relentless. By the close of 2020, experts foresee India

“The education which does not help the common mass of people to equip themselves for the struggle for life…is

August 2017

Fancy figures apart, what eventually matters is whether it is an education that ‘helps the common mass of people to equip themselves for the struggle for life’. Therein would lie the real success of the Indian educational system, as it surmounts its many challenges.

I'm not a teacher: only a fellow traveler of whom you asked the way. I pointed ahead - ahead of myself as well as you. -George Bernard Shaw

it worth the name?” Inspiring words of hope there, as Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley quoted Swami Vivekananda, while presenting the 2017 budget for the education sector. Watchers had reason to expect an encouraging outlay, given the shakeup in the HRD ministry leadership and the fact that elections were imminent in key states. The actual figures did not give much reason to rejoice. Compared to the 3.653% of the last budget, this year saw 3.711% allocated for the education sector. According to data from the union budget website, that translated into Rs.79686 crore – against an estimated Rs.73599 crore for the past financial year. There was no special budgetary allocation to support the ambitious plan announced the previous year to create a regulatory framework for 10 private and 10 public institutions to become world class. Nor was there mention of the Higher Education Funding

Agency (HEFA), which had been previously announced. There were certain heartening notes struck though: Focus on assessment of education outcomes, an innovative fund for secondary education, reforming of the University Grants Commission (UGC), the granting of increased autonomy to quality higher educational institutions, the announcement of the establishing of the National Testing Agency (NTA) to conduct academic entrance exams, the setting up of two new AIIMS in Gujarat and Jharkhand which would increase medical seats by 5000, and the launching of 100 India International centres across the country to guide youth seeking jobs abroad. The launch of the SWAYAM platform was also announced, using information technology to offer at least 350 online courses, with wider access via linkage with DTH channels. The intentions are clearly all good…

SCARCE SPEND Decades have lapsed but the goal to reach an educational spend of even 6% of the national income has still not been achievable. While the public expenditure on school education has been marginally increasing from 2.1% in 2004-2005 to 2.68 in 2015-2016, India continues to trail behind most countries in terms of education spending. India’s expenditure on education, at close to 4% of GDP, is behind that of comparable economies such as Brazil and South Africa, which have an edu spend of at least 6% of their GDP. Even then, there exists a glaring gap between education spending and learning outcomes in India. What’s more, in some cases the very nature of spending in school education is suspect – a December 2016 study showed that many states preferred appointing contractual teachers in order to reduce fiscal deficit, leading to a drop

August 2017

EDUTORIAL in the quality of teachers in schools. In 2013-201 only 60% of the 5.08 lakh contractual teachers at the elementary level across the country were found to have had professional training. A 2014 National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) paper, The Fiscal Cost of Weak Governance: Evidence from Teacher Absence in India threw up the additional problem of absenteeism: an estimated 23.6% of teachers in India’s government-run schools in rural areas were found absent during unannounced inspections. The fallout? A cost of $1.5 billion per year, besides a negation of the gains of lower pupilteacher ratio achieved through higher teacher recruitment. Eventually, it is better accountability and monitoring systems which will ensure improvement in educational outcomes; increased spending is only part of the solution.

QUALITY LOWS “Pretty disappointing” is how the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2016 described the overall learning level among Indian students. ASER, which measures the overall learning level and highlights the challenges in school education, threw up worrying trends: Despite education being a fundamental right for all children in the 6-14 year age group and the widespread enrolment in elementary school (class I to VIII), the proportion of children in class V who could read a class II level text book, actually declined from 48.1% in 2014 to 47.8% in 2016. According to the data culled from 589 rural districts of India, the results were as worrying in both Maths and English Comprehension. The proportion of class VIII students who could divide a three-digit number by a single-digit one dropped to 43.2% in 2016 from 44.2% in 2014. A faint glimmer in the fact that 32% of children in class III could read simple English words – a rise by 3.5 percentage points since 2009; however, only one out of every four students in class V could read an English sentence. “Development doesn’t just mean ‘expressways’ but also educating millions of students,” averred Arvind Subramanian, chief economic advisor to the Union Finance ministry, at the time of presenting the report, adding that the problem had to be dealt with from the bottom-up. NGO Pratham co-founder Madhav Chavan pointed out that while India is close to schooling for all, the journey towards learning for all is yet to begin. “Many parents and

India Learns UNICEF's latest findings on education in India Gross enrollment ratio (GER) in pre-primary education (%) 58 Net attendance ratio in primary education (NAR) (%) 84 Proportion of pupils starting grade 1 who reach grade 5 (%) 95 Proportion of out-of-school children of primary school age (%) 1 Net attendance ratio in secondary education (%) 54 Literacy rate (15-24 years) (%) 86 Source – unicef.org

policymakers still believe that schooling leads to learning. More than 10 years of data shows that the issue of learning needs urgent attention.” Enrolment is not an issue - ASER shows a near-complete 97% enrolment in schools – but with more than 50% of elementary schoolchildren in at least seven states, including Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab, being enrolled in private schools, it’s equally clear that government schools are not inspiring confidence.

NECESSARY ACTION A good schooling system eventually needs to train citizens, enhance economic production and improve social mobility. Educational efforts need to be scaled up, and obsolete curriculum upgraded constantly in order to ensure students are imparted the essential skills and latest knowledge to render a student work-ready upon completion of a course. Affordable and quality education is the right of every child, even the poor and therein lies the need for educational institutions to strike a balance between profitability and ethical values. Variable fee patterns would enable deserving, economically backward students to acquire admission in a quality private sector institution. Teachers, the backbone of the system, must be encouraged and enabled to upgrade their knowledge and skills, and hone their talents. The quality of education itself could benefit through the adopting of certain standards for improving instruction, which would place students on par with the global education scenario. Good teaching would emphasize on students as learners, with adjustment

August 2017

for diversity, provision of contextual information, and facilitation of meaningful dialogue and engagement. Education needs to be adaptable and responsive, to prepare students for life in a globalised world.

E-LEARNING EDGE A good chunk of this positive change could be ushered in via e-learning. The e-learning sector in India is currently pegged at a sizeable $2 billion, with an expected target of $5.7 billion by 2020. Fact is, learning driven by technology is impacting education in ways both qualitative and quantitative. Online learning, with its powerful reach and economical access, is literally rewriting the scenario of the Indian educational system. Propelled by a massive spurt in mobile-connected devices, data traffic and mobile video traffic, the educational tech sector is set to take off. With its ease of accessing knowledge online, enabling learners to stay abreast of latest developments, it is revamping the manner in which students, in search of new skills, are learning. E-learning can be a real game-changer in India, where mobile penetration is intense, with the 300 million connected to the internet expected to swell to 550 million by 2018. Digital and live online interactive platforms at different levels of learning have seen a surge, even as edu tech companies are propelling the development of data-driven education technologies. It is becomingly increasingly commonplace to get instructions from specialised instructors through live broadcasts, or then to attend recorded lectures which lead to increased student involvement and higher level learning. Video-based learning makes communication and information-based activity infinitely more engaging, while student interactions through video conferencing and virtual updating of textbooks is providing them with personalised attention. Mobile learning allows students to gather, access, and process information outside the classroom. Even rural and semiurban areas of India are discovering the benefits of both online and offline learning, as edu start-ups disrupt the traditional education system. As Anil Swarup, Secretary, Department of School Education and Literacy puts it, innovation could just be the key to bringing about a paradigm shift in how education is delivered in the country. It’s about time!

#UNCONFERENCE

THOUGHTS

AFIRE!

Global Thought Leaders from academia, public policy, government, spirituality, philanthropy and more will speak their brilliant minds at the ScooNews Global Educators Fest 2017 Unconference. Be there!

August 2017

ON1E YEAR ON Merging Creativity With Literacy

Share your knowledge. It is a way to achieve immortality. -Dalai Lama

Sugata Mitra

Anand Kumar

Dan Lejerskar

Professor and Principal Research Investigator at the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences at Newcastle University, UK, Sugata Mitra is famous for the Hole in the Wall (HIW) experiment, where in the year 1999 a computer was embedded within a wall in an Indian slum at Kalkaji, Delhi and children were allowed to freely use it. The experiment aimed at proving that kids could be taught computers very easily without any formal training. Mitra termed this as Minimally Invasive Education (MIE). The experiment has since been repeated at many places. He is the recipient of many awards from India, the UK, USA and many other countries in the world. His interests include Children’s Education, Remote Presence, Self-organising systems, Cognitive Systems, Physics and Consciousness. A PhD in Physics, he has been conferred several awards including the 1 million dollar TED Prize in 2013.

Anand Kumar is an Indian mathematician and columnist for various national and international mathematical journals and magazines. He is best known for his Super 30 programme, which he started in Patna, Bihar in 2002, and which coaches economically backward students for IIT-JEE, the entrance examination for the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). By 2016, 366 out of the 420 had made it to IITs and Discovery Channel showcased his work in a documentary. He has been invited by the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University to speak on his globally acclaimed effort to mentor students from the underprivileged sections for admission to IIT.

Mr. Dan Lejerskar is the Founder & Chairman of EON Reality, the world’s leading developer of scalable Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality solutions for providing effective Knowledge Transfer in the Education, Industry and Edutainment markets. The company has offices in 10 locations world-wide and includes organizations such as Boeing, Exxon Mobil, and United Nations Industrial Development Organization amongst its users. Mr. Lejerskar’s awards include Most Accomplished Businessman for Fastest Growing Company in Sweden; Co-winner with the CEO of Volvo AB of Chalmers University of Technology Daleen Prize and Entrepreneur of the Year. He has been selected to speak in capacity of VR expert to the Asian Leadership Conference in 2015 and 2016. Lejerskar holds dual Masters of Science degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science from Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden.

Anil Swarup Secretary, Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Anil Swarup is an MA in Political Science, In his over three decades long career, he has served as Secretary, Industries in UP and Managing Director of Pradeshiya Industries and Investment Corporation of UP (PICUP). At the Centre, he was an export commissioner under Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) and chairman of Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA). Between 2006 and 2013, Mr. Swarup was with the Union Labour Ministry, a key driver in implementing the national health insurance scheme – the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY). Mr. Swarup was posted as Secretary in the Coal Ministry and is credited for successfully developing and implementing the auction of coal mines model for allocation of natural resources.

Geeta Dharmarajan Geeta Dharmarajan, writer, editor, teacher, heads Katha, a “profit for all" organization that she founded in 1988. Her passions have shaped the inclusive and integrated work of Katha in the literature to literacy continuum, and its various interlinked activities in the fields of quality publishing and education for children. Her StoryPedagogy, based on Bharata's Natya Shastra, a 2000-year old treatise, has been in use in Katha’s books and learning centres and the government schools Katha works in, to enhance quality schooling for children from marginalized families. Author of more than 30 books and some 400+ articles, Geeta has served, inter alia, as an assistant editor of the Penn Gazette, the alumni magazine of the Ivy League University of Pennsylvania. She received the Padma Shri for her innovative work in literature and education in 2012.

August 2017

#UNCONFERENCE Sonam Wangchuk

Dr Swati Popat Vats

An innovator and educationist hailing from Ladakh, Sonam Wangchuk is a rare example of grit and determination who fought against all odds to make quality education available to the young guns in the valley and contributed significantly to the locals with his innovations in agriculture. He was recently awarded the Rolex award for Enterprise 2016 for his work on Ice Stupa Artificial glacier project in Ladakh. He plans to use the money from the award to build the Himalayan Institute of Alternatives, which will involve young students to solve issues faced by people like education, culture and environment. The real life inspiration of the character Phunsuk Wangdu from Bollywood blockbuster 3 Idiots, Wangchuk has created a successful model of localised system of elementary education, which has been adopted officially by the Hill Council.

Dr Swati Popat Vats, President of Podar Education Network, leads over 290 preschools and day-cares as founder Director of Podar Jumbo Kids. She is also the founder President of Early Childhood Association India. National representative for the World Forum Foundation, she is also Nursery Director of Little Wonders Nursery (UAE). She has been conferred the Fellowship of Honour from the New Zealand Tertiary College. Founder consultant for the Euro Kids preschool project in India, she helped set up Tata Sky’s children’s television activity channel - Actve Whizkids. She is founder expert on video based parenting website www.born-smart.com that helps parents nurture early brain development. Having authored many books for parents and children, she is a strong advocate of nature based learning in the early years and promotes brain research based teaching and parenting in her workshops across the globe.

Prof P B Sharma A reputed academician, Professor P B Sharma, currently the Vice Chancellor of Amity University Gurgaon, has been the founder Vice-Chancellor of Delhi Technological University. Formerly Professor of IIT Delhi, founder Vice-Chancellor of Rajiv Gandhi Technology University, President of Engineering Science Division of Indian Science Congress, Chairman of Indian Society of Mechanical Engineers and ViceChairman of World Confederation of Productivity Sciences, India Section, he is a Doctorate from University of Birmingham, UK. During his professional career spanning over 46 years, he has made distinguished contributions in the areas of Aero Engineering Technology, Power Plant Engineering, New and Renewable Energy Resources and Knowledge and Innovation Management. He is known for his relentless pursuit of excellence and for promotion of world quality education, research, innovations and entrepreneurship.

Matthew Raggett

Joyanto Mukherjee Joyanto is the founder of Tutored and Trained (TnT), A first of its kind education auditing firm. TnT aims at changing the way educational institutes function. Joyonto leads a young team buzzing with ideas and acts as an advisory of leading educationalists across the country. Joyanto was the country's youngest Dean at the age of 30 at Thadomal Shahani Centre for Management, where he was instrumental in changing the concept of traditional B Schools. He also headed three other centres --- Centre for Media and Communication; Centre for Liberal Arts; Centre for Technology Research. So in all, he was heading 4 different centres as their Dean.

August 2017

A British educator who is the incumbent Headmaster of The Doon School, Matthew Raggett, has had an extensive career in international education. An MBA in Educational Leadership, his sense of vocation led him to choose a career in education in order to make the greatest contribution to society. Besides serving as Principal of the Secondary School of Leipzig International School in Germany, he has taught Physics in the United Kingdom, and served as Head of Physics at the Vienna International School. He has boarding experience in a number of the schools in which he taught, including Pearson United World College in Canada; United World College in Singapore; and King’s College, Madrid, where he was head of the boarding section. He has invaluable experience in strategic planning and educational policy-making and implementation in a variety of international settings.

Education breeds confidence. Confidence breeds hope. Hope breeds peace. -Confucius

Dr Harish Chaudhary Dr Harish Chaudhary, Professor, Department of Management Studies teaches Marketing Management, Brand Management and Creative Problem solving to undergraduate, graduate and post graduate students at IIT Delhi. One of his key interests is to conduct research in the field of education. Research on the K12 education space has led him to train more than 3000 school principals from schools across India through multiple training sessions on a variety of issues and research areas that are the pain points of current education system in India. Working on the higher education space, he has conducted multiple training sessions for academic institutions across India. He has also conducted extensive research in higher education space with the support of Ministry of HRD, Government of India.

Seema Bansal

G K Swamy

Seema Bansal leads the Boston Consulting Group’s Social Impact practice in India and is a member of the firm’s People & Organization and Public Sector practices. An MBA from IIMCalcutta, and an Engineering degree holder, she has worked extensively in financial services and telecommunications. She forged a path to public education reform for 15,000 schools in Haryana by setting an ambitious goal: by 2020, 80 percent of children should have grade-level knowledge. Looking to meet this goal by seeking reforms that will work in every school without additional resources, Bansal and her team have found success using creative, straightforward techniques such as communicating with teachers using SMS group chats, and have already measurably improved learning and engagement in Haryana’s schools. This is the subject of her TED Talk titled “How to fix a broken education system…without any more money”

Retirement from the field of Capital Management 19 years ago, was a rebirth of sorts for the 1936-born G K Swamy and the population of Purkal, Uttarakhand. Observing the marginal level of education among the rural poor children, he and wife Chinni Swamy identified promising students and put in long hours coaching them after school. From free tutoring grew the dream and reality of setting up of a school to provide free quality education to create opportunities for the children coming from impoverished backgrounds and giving them a level field with respect to their privileged peers. PYDS Learning Academy, a CBSE affiliated school currently cares for about 450 underprivileged children. Presently Director/ Secretary of the Purkal Society, he is matched by wife Chinni who heads the Purkal Stree-Shakti Samiti, a sister society, which creates hand-made products with the help of girls living in the village.

Dr Kamlesh Misra

Fatima Agarkar

Professor Dr Kamlesh Misra graduated with a Master’s Degree in Economics from Allahabad University, India. After completing his Ph.D. from Northeastern University, Boston, he taught there as lecturer until 1990. He did his advanced training in Financial Management of Local and Regional Governments from Harvard Institute for International Development, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA. He served as an Economist at the Center for Social & Urban Research, Pittsburgh University from 1990 to 1994 when he returned to India to Join as HDFC Associate Professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, New Delhi. Dr Misra is a wellknown and reputed strategist and innovative leader in conceiving, organizing and managing educational and research organizations. Currently Vice Chancellor at Ansal University, Gurgaon, he has authored six books and written over 50 papers in refereed journals.

Armed with a Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) from England, apart from her B.ED and ECCE, she was adjudged one of the top 50 young educators in 2014. She is also the recipient of several awards for outstanding contribution to education, her most recent being the Women Achievers Awards. She is on the advisory panel of the Lit O Fest, Mumbai and was also invited as a panellist for the Women Power 2017, ‘How Women Entrepreneurs are Changing Industries with Innovation’. Commerzbank, Times of India and Egon Zender International as diverse organisations were the perfect foundation before she was involved in the set up of three premier K-12 national and international schools in Mumbai. She is co-founder of KA EduAssociates along with Gitika Kishanchandani, to create more opportunities for stakeholders in the education space with a passion for teacher training, special needs and sports.

August 2017

#UNCONFERENCE Dr Jawahar Surisetti

Dr Kavita Aggarwal

Dr Jawahar Surisetti is a psychologist and educationist of international repute whose 1300 + speeches, seminars and workshops have been heard by lakhs of people around the globe. He is known worldwide as the Think Professor for his ‘Art of Thinking’ and his ‘Think for India’ movement for introduction of thinking in education. He has received innumerable accolades for his pioneering works and thoughts on various issues of strategic interest to corporates and school as well as higher education. He advises state and central governments in India and U.S. He is also the brand ambassador of skill development for the State of Queensland.

In the field of education since over 35 years, Dr Kavita Aggarwal has expertise in setting up national and international curriculum schools. Her expertise is in Curriculum Designing, Implementation and Teacher Training. She has worked with all boards for documentation and curriculum management from inception to the functional level. She was also associated with an IB/ A level School as an Academic Advisor to the Management for setting up various administrative policies and procedures. The purpose of this assignment was to ensure educational and leadership excellence, smooth running of the school and attainment of its vision. She heads the Members of International Schools Association (M.I.S.A) as the Chairperson where around 60 CIE schools are members. MISA provides assistance to the school management for the setting up of new CIE schools and renders them academic support to execute the CIE curriculum.

Dr Manjula Pooja Shroff An edupreneur, Dr Majula Pooja Shroff is regarded by many as the change agent for schooling in the state of Gujarat. As CEO of Kalorex, she has been instrumental in founding and managing several premier schools including the Delhi Public Schools, recently foraying into international territory with fresh footprints in the UAE. Kalorex is recognized as a quality conscious group with a focus on innovation and use of technology in learning. Independent Director at Gujarat Gas Company Ltd., Eimco Elecon (India) Limited and Sabarmati Gas Ltd, her concern for the marginalized and those with special learning needs is evident through the projects Visamo Kids and Prerna – a school for dyslexics. She is a recipient of several awards, including the Secular India Award from the President of India, and Woman of the Year by American Bibliography Society, North Carolina.

Dr Sumer Singh Dr Neeta Bali Dr Neeta Bali started her career with Mater Dei School in Delhi as Head of Department – English in 1983 followed by Apeejay School, NOIDA as Vice- principal and G D Goenka World School as Head of School. She is currently the Principal at Podar International School, Powai, Mumbai. Prior to this she worked with Kasiga School as Head of School which is one of the ten best co-educational residential schools in India and is consistently rated as the No. 1 school in Uttarakhand and Dehradun. Her repertoire includes varied curricula - CBSE, ISC, ICSE, IGCSE and IB-DP as well as AS and A levels. She is a seasoned speaker; having been invited to various conferences as an educational expert, an author; having written for leading publishers and a teacher trainer. With over 30 years of experience, she is well versed with modern pedagogy and educational practices.

August 2017

Dr Sumer Singh, an alumnus of The Doon School and St. Stephens College, was the principal at Daly College, Indore from 2003-2016. He was the Head of Lawrence School, Sanawar, served as the Director of the Asian School, Dehradun, taught at the Doon School, at Gordonstoun, Scotland, at Boxhill and Windermere St. Anne’s in England and in UWC, Wales. He has also served as the Chairman of a marketing cooperative society for 100 villages; as Vice President of SUTRA, an NGO with 40,000 women as members; as Advisor Education at the rank of Secretary in the Punjab Government; as Vice President in Himachal Pradesh of State Federation for Swimming, Tennis, Squash, Shooting & Cricket and as a Director of Indore Management Association. He has designed a number of schools including Pathways World School, Doon Girls and Sanskar Valley. He also serves on the Governing Body of Mayo College and Mayo Girl’s.

Seek opportunities to show you care. The smallest gestures often make the biggest difference. -John Wooden

Abbas Zeeb Abdulsamad

Abhishek Tiwari

Aditi Avasthi

Born in Damascus, Syria, this international scholar currently works in American Curriculum schools in Dubai as a teacher, and e-learning coordinator. In the field of education for over 16 years, Abbas Zeeb Abdulsamad incorporates various forms of new technology in his teaching methodology. He encourages his students to link learning to their daily lives and interests. Students create games, websites, blogs, 3D printing, and use Go Pro cameras to bring literature selections and vocabulary to life. His work has been recognised by the Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Majlis in addition to being featured in “What Works” through KHDA. He inspires his students to be innovative in their perception of any new concept, and is known for his motto, ‘Bring new ideas to class every day!’

With over 10 years of cross-functional experience in creating and managing technologyenabled products in the education sector, Abhishek Tiwari has been at the forefront of developing various innovative technology enabled products catering to the supplemental and schools solutions market. A serial entrepreneur who has founded companies in education, fashion and hospitality, he takes pride in being an active catalyst in the Indian start-up ecosystem engaging with early stage companies and helping them build products and teams to gain early traction. Having been an entrepreneur himself, Abhishek understands the everyday struggles of setting up a business from scratch and the wins and losses that come along in that journey. Abhishek is always excited about new ideas and problems to solve that can impact millions.

Founder and CEO of Embibe, Aditi Avasthi loves building stuff that can create a sizeable dent in the universe. Embibe is an exciting artificial intelligence platform that is personalising the delivery of education to students in emerging markets. It works to maximise the true potential of every student through the time they spend in formal education and beyond. A complete platform with a deep stack on content intelligence, Embibe uses computer vision, and student intelligence built using custom neural networks, culminating in mentor intelligence which leverages the other two. Backed by Kalaari Capital and Lighbox Ventures, students using Embibe’s tools have demonstrated tremendous improvement in learning outcomes for some of the toughest exams in the world.

Aditya Tripathi

Akhil Shahani

With more than 20 years of experience in marketing, sales, business development and content creation with media organizations including the India Today Group, Hindustan Times, the Outlook Group and Discovery Networks, Aditya Tripathi has launched magazines, websites and TV channels and has extensive experience in business-building. He has also worked as an External Advisor to McKinsey & Co. Armed with degrees from the London School of Economics and IIM, Ahmedabad, he conceptualised MarkSharks as a technology-based system to teach children Maths and Science using highly interactive pedagogy almost five years ago.

An MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Akhil Shahani’s twin areas of focus are education and entrepreneurship. The fourth generation Shahani in the education sector, Akhil also runs the non-profit SAGE Foundation which provides education and skills training for a hundred villages in Maharashtra. He has received the ‘Bharat Shiromani Award’ for his work in education. The Shahani Group steadfastly pursues its traditional love for learning with its mission to bring about significant and relevant upgradation in the realm of education. He is also involved with Kaizen Management Advisors Pvt. Ltd, a firm investing in education and also mentors young entrepreneurs in his spare time.

August 2017

#UNCONFERENCE Imran Jafar

Jigme Karuna Yangchen

Equipped with post graduate degrees in software engineering from BITS-Pilani and an MBA from IIM-Bangalore, Imran Jafar is a General Partner at Gaja Capital, India’s leading midmarket growth capital firm. Gaja’s aim is to help create India’s next generation of market leaders and has invested in sectors such as Education, Consumer and Financial Services. Imran has over 18 years of experience in Private Equity, Pharmaceuticals and Technology services. Prior to Gaja, Imran worked in a variety of roles of increasing responsibility at Dr Reddy’s and Wipro Technologies. At Gaja, Imran leads investments in the Education and Consumer clusters. He has been closely involved with Gaja’s investments in SportzVillage (Sports management), EuroKids (Pre-K and K12), John Distilleries (AlcoBev), CL Educate (Supplemental Education), Indus World Schools (K12), Educomp (Educationdiversified) and Millennium Schools (K12).

Darjeeling’s Jigme Karuna Yangchen will represent the Kung Fu Nuns of the Himalayas, and speak on behalf of their collective gender equality initiatives. The Kung Fu Nuns, the monastic women of the Drukpa lineage of Buddhism, have developed and executed a number of environmental and educational projects that have changed the landscape of Ladakh India, Nepal, and beyond. They are known for their annual Eco Pad Yatras where grassroots, environmental education is done by trekking to inaccessible regions, and Bicycle Yatras to reach nomadic communities often neglected by centralized institutions. They speak and educate on the importance of gender equality, environmentally conscious living, and interfaith harmony. Featured by the BBC and Time magazine, they perform Kung Fu demonstrations of skill, strength, and weaponry to encourage young girls to be strong.

Kavita Sanghvi Shortlisted among the top 50 finalists for the Global Teacher Prize 2017 by Varkey Foundation, Kavita Sanghvi is a Masters in Nuclear Physics, combined with a Bachelor and Master of Education degrees, and a Master of Philosophy. She progressed from teacher to Subject Coordinator as she explored her potential in leadership roles. Vice Principal at MET Rishikul Vidyalaya, she has been Head of School since 2013. She initiated the Cambridge curriculum to enhance critical thinking and creativity and trained teachers to execute the curriculum effectively. She had also undertaken the British Council’s Global Teacher Accreditation research-based project, besides being a trained validated trainer for British Council. A British Council School Ambassador, she is also the MISA Secretary and is pursuing an advanced course in Educational Leadership from Harvard University.

Krishna Vinjamuri With over 13 years of experience as an early stage investor, management consultant and techie, Krishna Vinjamuri has worked across retail, technology, telecom and financial services industries. His recent work includes evaluating new investment opportunities and supporting companies achieve profitable growth. He likes to explore new business models and is a firm believer in the power of technology to solve complex problems. Trained at IIT and battle hardened at start-ups in the US, he returned to India to secure an MBA from the Indian School of Business. Subsequently he made his way back to technology through the world of consulting at BCG, then strategy at Tata Telesevices and finally settled back into the entrepreneurial world at Lightbox.

August 2017

Lakshyaraj Singh Mewar Scion of the 1500 year-old House of Mewar in Udaipur, Lakshyaraj Singh Mewar is the son of Shriji Arvind Singh Mewar and Smt. Vijayraj Kumari Mewar of Udaipur. He is trustee of the Vidyadan Trust and the Maharana of Mewar Charitable Foundation, besides being Executive Director, Lake Palace Hotels & Motels Pvt. Ltd., Executive Director, Historic Resorts Hotels Pvt. Ltd. and President, Maharana Pratap Smarak Samiti. Raised to respect and honour his esteemed heritage, his commitment to social causes and his dedication to the public have created awareness on several issues related to the rural and urban populace in the region. He has conducted various campaigns to create awareness in the field of education, health, environment and other social causes, in order to improve the standard of living and quality of life of the local people.

I never teach my pupils, I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn. -Albert Einstein

Lihleni Joseph Nsele

Ambarish Rai

Lt Col. A Sekhar

An elected Member of Education Schools Governing Body within the Gauteng province of South Africa, Lihleni Joseph Nsele has been voting delegate on the Congress of South African Trade Union (COSATU), volunteer and report writer on the National Census of South Africa, and member of the National Association of School Governing Body. He has made a submission to ex-President Kgalema Mothlante’s select committee on Transformation of the South African Schools’ Act. Nsele has also been a parliamentary library contributor to the National Library of South Africa. Among his own initiatives to shape the education discourse, he has written three books, namely Some No Fee Schools Are Expensive Schools, How To Develop Best Practices In School Governing Bodies, and Principal How To Train And Develop Your School Governing Body.

Associated with educational activism since his student days, Ambarish Rai is currently working for Right to Education Forum (RTE Forum) as National Convener, since 2010. The Right to Education Forum (RTE Forum) is a platform of national education networks, teachers’ unions, peoples’ movements and prominent educationists with a combined strength of 10,000 NGOs from all over India. The Forum has been working towards building a people’s movement to achieve the goal of equitable and quality education for all children through the realisation of the Right to Education Act, 2009 - in its true letter and spirit. The Forum envisions realising the goal of universal education for a strong public system of education, funded by the state.

A dynamic result-oriented soldier educationist with holistic experience in the areas of education, administration, leadership and HR, Lt. Col. A Sekhar has led and mentored all round transformation of a co-ed day (ICSE) School and revitalized and fostered the spirit of all round excellence among students, teachers and other staff in two residential schools. During his tenure with the Indian Armed Forces, he co-ordinated and implemented various service and University courses. He has conducted workshops on leadership, motivation, and teaching learning processes at various levels and is frequent participant as Speaker and Programme Chair in nationally and internationally noted education summits/conferences. He is also a jury member for the selection of Best Teacher/ Principal for Mahatma Gandhi Education Awards in Gujarat State.

Manas Mehrotra

Amit Goyal

Trustee of multiple award-winning Greenwood High school, Manas Mehrotra believes that it is vital that the youth get quality education with a proper blend of traditional values and the best of technology. An entrepreneur par excellence, with a vision for the betterment of the society, his passion for and lucid understanding of education as a vital factor for socio-economic development has shaped his perspective towards alternative Indian education. He has played a pivotal role in the success of Greenwood High school by modernising and revitalising the existing education techniques. He believes that education is a dedicated service, hence focus and involvement is crucial. Proactive in his style of working, vigorous in pursuing his objectives and committed to attaining his goal, he is dedicated to experimenting and researching in the areas of educational technology.

Amit describes himself as a ‘Tech led Frugal Innovation Specialist’ and has hands-on experience launching million-dollar products in Ed-Tech and Telco/OEM. He currently heads the India Business for edX – word’s largest open source MOOC platform founded by MIT & Harvard University. Amit has also headed Education Solutions Business at Samsung and launched various platforms for Enterprise customers. Prior to this, Amit was instrumental in launching the world’s cheapest Tablet PC ‘Aakash’ – a project commissioned by the government of India. Amit has also handled Product Marketing roles in UK, Europe and India with leading telcos e.g. T-Mobile’s MVNO – Vectone and Reliance Communications. With more than 90 global partners, edX is associated with the world’s leading universities, non-profits, and institutions as members.

August 2017

#UNCONFERENCE Meenakshi Uberoi

Mithun Kamath

As Founding Director of De Pedagogics, education evangelist Meenakshi Uberoi has been passionately involved in coaching, teaching and learning for over 13 years. She designs curriculum and works closely with schools to help them determine the best teaching strategies, transforming education using technology, implementing valuable learning experiences, and evaluating student performance to make any necessary changes in enhancing curricula. She leads professional learning sessions for educationists for creating innovative, challenging and enriching classroom environments that are conducive to students becoming life-long learners. Meenakshi drives programs to accelerate technology benefits in education with a scope of activities that cover the full spectrum of learning scenarios, including: student programs, teacher PD programs, K-12 learning technologies, 1:1 personal learning infrastructure and supporting educational content.

In an international career spanning over 20 years, Mithun has been a long term advocate of skill development in youth – particularly 21st Century Skills and Vocational Education. This passion and interest have led him to set up Arc Skills; a business that is truly disrupting the education and training sector by utilising the latest technology and pedagogies to teach vital skills to students, youth, and professionals. Within three years the business has trained over 26,000 people across Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, India, and Argentina, in 90 different subjects. Mithun actively participates in international forums as a speaker and is an expert in the field of best practices in skills development across Singapore, Australia, Germany, UK and India. This knowledge has helped him to establish curriculum and train the trainer partnerships in Africa, Middle East, Asia, and South America.

Rashenah Walker An international curriculum specialist and educational trainer, Rashenah Walker holds a Master’s degree in Education majoring in Instructional Technology and is a dual major Doctoral Candidate in Educational Leadership and Curriculum Design. Beginning her career in the United States as a special education and Advanced Placement teacher, she has since worked in the areas of curriculum design, educational administration, organizational needs analysis, and teacher development. As an independent contractor, Rashenah has completed professional development trainings for TESOL, College Board, Edmodo, and KDSL. Her professional career outside of academia includes currently serving on the TESOL Professional Standards Council, and appearing as a guest on the radio show Myk12career.com. She currently works as a Curriculum Specialist in Dubai and is the Edmodo Regional Director for the MENA area.

Robin Chaurasiya Rishi Kapal Rishi Kapal is the Chief Executive of EDUGILD and advisor to 18 emerging technologies start-ups in AR, VR, 3D, Adaptive Learning, Instructional Design, University Destinations, Skills Assessment, K12, UG and Higher Ed domains. EDUGILD is India’s first technologyeducation and knowledge management start-ups accelerator. A regular international speaker at events like edtechasia (Thailand), edtechxasia (Singapore), GET 2016 (China), he has, during a corporate career span of 21 years, worked in coveted roles with leading organizations namely Sony, Qualcomm, Castrol, Ericsson, Tata Lucent and HCL to name a few. Rishi hold a Bachelor’s Degree in Electronics Engineering, Degree in Law (LLB) followed by two Master’s degrees each from IMI New Delhi and Pune University. He is a passionate start-ups mentor, facilitator, academician, and author of Next Generation Mobile Communications.

August 2017

Founder of Kranti School which empowers marginalised girls in Mumbai’s red light district to agents of social change, Robin Chaurasiya has formalised a social justice curriculum covering key issues that affect the girls’ lives which they use to design and implement projects. In 2013, they convinced an MP to help them register sex workers to vote. They have led workshops for more than 100,000 people and delivered 11 TEDx talks around the world. The school is truly diverse with different ages, literacy levels, languages, ethnicities, religions, castes and abilities. With Robin’s help, the Krantikaries (revolutionaries) develop into peer teachers and community leaders. The Los Angeles-born Robin served with the US Air Force for many years. She was selected among the top 10 finalists for the prestigious Global Teacher Prize 2016 from 8,000 nominations and applications from 148 countries from around the world.

One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world. -Malala Yousafzai

Beas Dev Ralhan

Dr Rajeev Gupta

Commander V K Banga

A self-confessed technologist at heart and entrepreneur by nature, as the Chairman of Next Education, Beas Dev Ralhan leads a talented team which creates innovative solutions to energise education so that every child’s capacity for genius is identified, embraced and nurtured. Launched in 2007, Next Education is now one of the most trusted brands in the Indian digital education landscape. Around 10,000,000 students, 150,000 teachers, and over 10000 schools in India trust Next Education’s innovative technologybased K–12 solutions. In less than a decade, Next Education has grown to be among the top three digital education solution providers in India. He is an avid supporter of the open source software movement and enjoys reading books on business management and magic realism.

CA Dr Rajeev Gupta is a strategic advisor and transformational coach, working with individuals, groups, corporations and educational institutions. Through values in teacher training, parenting, and multiple intelligence based teaching programs, Rajeev has helped many schools incorporate values infused methodology to successfully fulfil their aims and objectives. Founder Director for Telescope Solutions, a multiple intelligence based teaching foundation; founder Director of Golden Bells, India’s first multiple intelligence based preschool; founder Director of De Indian Public School, a senior secondary school; Director of India’s leading educational publisher, Rachna Sagar and founder Director of Swa – Adhyayan, the learning app for school students, Rajeev is also a firm believer in giving back to society through many of his initiatives and NGOs.

Commander Banga, Chairman – IPSC & Principal, The Mann School, Delhi, was commissioned in the Indian Navy in 1980. During his 25 years of service he had opportunities to serve at INS Shivaji, Lonavla; INS Garuda, Kochi; INS Vikrant and as the Principal of Sainik School Ghorakhal, Nainital. An accomplished, motivated and result-oriented professional in the field of education, he is a man with a mission to educate the young generation and guide them to be better citizens of the country. Presently working as Principal, The Mann School, Delhi, Commander VK Banga was elected as the Chairman IPSC at the 76th Conclave of the Indian Public Schools’ Conference held at The Lawrence School, Lovedale, Ooty.

Dr Dheeraj Mehrotra

Gaurav Mehra

Vice President (Academic Training/ School Audits) – Next Education India Pvt Ltd, Dr Dheeraj Mehrotra is an academic evangelist, author, National awardee, educational innovator, Limca Book record holder and India Book record holder. A former school Principal, he has over 25 years of experience in the spectrum of Teaching, Implementation of Six Sigma in Education, Quality Circles in Education, TQM in Education, training expertise on Quality Skills and Information Technology, CBSE Empanelled Resource Master Trainer, CBSE Certified Peer Assessors for School Quality Assessment and Accreditation (SQAA), Resource Person for Computer Science, Association of Schools for the Indian School Certificate (ASISC). He has published over 45 books on Computer Science for ICSE/ ISC/ CBSE/ State Boards, besides receiving several awards including Best Teacher by the government of India and Young Quality Leader Award.

Having joined Kaizen in 2015, Gaurav Mehra leads the fund’s Education Technology investments. Prior to joining Kaizen, he co-founded Saba and helped build it into a $150 million public company and a global leader in Talent Management software solutions. With 25 years in building technology and scaling global product and service operations, Gaurav helps portfolio companies shape defensible growth strategies. Gaurav holds BS and MS degrees in Computer Science from Stanford University.

August 2017

#UNCONFERENCE Shreevats Jaipuria

Sumantra Sen

Vice Chairman of Jaipuria Group, Shreevats Jaipuria oversees the educational ventures of Jaipuria including Seth M R Jaipuria Schools (20 schools pan-India and growing) and Jaipuria Institutes of Management (Lucknow, Noida, Jaipur, Indore). Jaipuria has emerged as one of the foremost players in school and management education in recent years under his dynamic leadership, with NAAC A Grade accreditation and Top 30 ranking by MHRD. Within two years, the schools pan-India have received a wonderful response from students, teachers and the public at large. Currently, 15,000+ students and 1000+ teachers are directly associated with Jaipuria. He is also Executive Director of Ginni International Limited, an integrated textile manufacturing unit with turnover of over INR 600 crore. He is a graduate of the prestigious Stern School of Business, New York University, USA.

A finance specialist and investment executive with over 24 years of experience in global capital markets and portfolio management, Sumantra Sen’s present role is as Executive Director at Finnacle. His key responsibility is to develop an impact investing platform, focused on improving access to energy, water, finance and other sustainable infrastructure. He is also the Executive Chairman at InCircle – a Finnacle Capital initiative and a development solutions studio that innovates and collaborates with public and private actors to evolve new pathways for implementing large-scale solutions to challenges in development sector. At InCircle, he leads the Environment, Social & Governance (ESG) engagement practice and Gender lens integration initiative. An MBA and member of CISI, UK, his expert comments and articles have been covered in United Nations’ reports, The Economic Times and more.

Vaibhav Chhabra A mechanical engineer by profession but a carpenter by passion, Vaibhav Chhabra is a graduate from Boston University. He spent two years of his career at EyeNetra, a start-up from MIT media labs, building eye diagnostic devices. A few years ago, when he moved to Mumbai, Vaibhav founded Makers Asylum. He essentially coupled his degree with his passion to create the first community makerspace in India. He is also the Chair for innovation and entrepreneurship at Young Indians – Confederation of Indian Industries and a Global Shaper at the World Economic Forum. He recently started the STEAM school in collaboration with the French embassy in India, which focuses on project based learning to work on sustainable development goals. Vaibhav enjoys making furniture, photography and diving.

Valentina Trivedi Bringing creativity to all she does, Valentina Trivedi’s unique strength lies in approaching the learning process from a child’s perspective. A lifelong passion for reading and telling stories led her beyond their entertainment value to experience their power as a tool for creating an effective learning environment as well as imparting human values. She has used her storytelling talent to write and perform stories for adults as well as children: as a Dastango (performance artist of the recently revived ancient art form of Urdu storytelling, Dastangoi), a scriptwriter, director of documentaries and a senior copywriter in advertising. To make a change in the way learning is perceived and experienced by children and adults, she founded ‘Kaleidoscope’ with Uma Oza and holds training programs to educate and motivate both teachers and children. An alumna of The Doon School, she was the first woman to be on the executive committee of the Doon School Old Boys’ Society and is the Editor Emeritus of their quarterly magazine, ‘The Rose Bowl.’

August 2017

Varun Khullar As Vice President – Education Business, Varun Khullar aims to create a cashless ecosystem, leading to easy transactions within the campuses. He has also managed the partnerships division at Paytm Payments Bank. An alumnus of IIT Madras and India School of Business (ISB), Khullar has more than 13 years of diverse work experience. ?Before joining Paytm, ?he? led a medical devices firm Boston Scientific Corporation for three years before which he was with consulting firm McKinsey & Company for four years. Varun had started his career with tobacco-to-FMCG-to-hotel conglomerate ITC for four years where he was the factory Production Manager.

Those who know, do. Those that understand, teach. -Aristotle

S K Rathor

Prof Pratapsinh Chauhan

Prof Tankeshwar Kumar

An M.Sc. and M.Phil. in Physics and MBA in Marketing, S K Rathor is the founder and Managing Director of the Sanfort Group of Schools. He is the founding President of Early Childhood Care & Development Educator’s Association. A computer engineer by profession, he along with wife Kavita Rathor launched Sanfort based on the UK concept of preschool education. Today it is one the leading names in preschool education with 53 schools in Delhi-NCR and more than 125 schools in the country. The curriculum of Sanfort is accredited to British Association of Early Childhood Education UK and is also a member of Preschool Learning Alliance. Rathor has been decorated with several awards and his success entrepreneurial journey has been telecast on ABP News in India’s top 10 Most Inspiring Success Stories. He is a regular speaker at major conferences and seminars on education and entrepreneurship in the country.

Presently serving as Vice Chancellor, Saurashtra University, Rajkot - Gujarat (India), Professor Pratapsinh Chauhan is associated with National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), Bengaluru, as a member of the Standing Committee as well as Executive Committee. He has also worked as Chairperson of Peer Team for NAAC assessment of countless colleges. He is actively involved in the formation of policy framework of higher education by Government of Gujarat, the committee for formulation of New University Act for Bhakt Kavi Narhinh Mehta University, and Shri Govind Guru University, Gujarat. He has worked as a member for various Search Committees for appointment of Vice Chancellors in various universities. A double gold medal holder for his Master of Commerce Degree in Accounting from Gujarat University, he has done his doctoral research in Accounting and Finance at Saurashtra University, and his FDPM from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad where he was awarded CRMS Fellowship.

Vice Chancellor, Guru Jambheshwar University of Science and Technology, Hisar, Haryana, Professor Tankeshwar Kumar holds additional charge of Vice Chancellor, Deenbandhu Chhotu Ram University of Science and Technology, Murthal, Sonepat. He has been UGC Professor of Physics, Panjab University, Chandigarh, Director, Computer Center, Panjab University, since June, 2005, Reader in Physics, Associate Dean, PTU, Lecturer in Panjab University, Chandigarh, Lecturer in H.P. University, Shimla, Research Associate (CSIR) Panjab University, and PostDoctoral Fellow, ICTP, Trieste, Italy. His recent responsibilities include Chairman, Committee to establish first Skill University of Haryana, Member Planning Board YMCA University of Science and Technology, Faridabad, Founding Member Board of Governors IIIT, Sonipat, Chairman, Committee for Student elections in Haryana, and Chairman/Member of NAAC peer teams.

Prof V P S Arora An alumnus of G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pant Nagar, Professor V P S Arora is a teacher, scientist, consultant and academic administrator of repute. He is presently Distinguished Professor (Management), Sharda University, Greater Noida. He is also Mentor, Centre for Education Growth and Research, Director Nainital Bank Limited and Director, Jasmine Mega Structures Private Limited. Formerly Pro-Chancellor and Vice Chancellor of Shri Venkateshwara University Uttar Pradesh and Pro-Chancellor of Venkateshwara Open University, Itanagar, he has been President of Centre for Education Growth and Research and Vice Chancellor designate of Supertech University Uttarakhand and Vice Chancellor of Kumaun University, Nainital. He has been with Udaipur University, Udaipur; G B Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar (Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, Professor, Head of Department, and Dean of Management Faculty; Alemaya University, Ethiopia (World Bank Professor); and Amity University Uttar Pradesh (Dean Academics).

Vipul Redey Head of School Enablement at Khan Academy, India, Vipul Redey was previously Director of Academics at Pearson Schools where he managed all aspects of the student learning experience for 20 schools and 25,000 students pan-India. He has also been the CXO at Global Discovery Schools. Redey previously worked in Silicon Valley where he managed a large part of Cisco’s $225 million global IT training and technical certifications portfolio. He is a TED-Ed Innovative Educator, a TEDx speaker, and an alumnus of the Learning, Design & Technology program at the Stanford University Graduate School of Education.

August 2017

#UNCONFERENCE Atul Khosla

Brig (Dr) P S Siwach

Founder and Pro Vice Chancellor at Shoolini University, Himachal Pradesh - India’s leading research centric private university - Atul Khosla also advises Indian and global organisations on strategy, operations and outsourcing, as Independent Director with Gabriel India, Director with Innohive (a social incubator), Advisor to Swiss Re and Senior Advisor to Ankur Capital (a social VC fund), among others. A BTech from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur and an MBA from JBIMS, Mumbai, Atul’s key areas of expertise include Education, Financial Services, Outsourcing and Manufacturing. In the past, Atul founded Oliver Wyman’s (the world’s leading FS consultants) consulting practice in India which he then led for eight years, besides leading the global financial services and technology practices of a-connect ag. in Zurich. He was also founder of Everest Group’s businesses in India and Asia.

Soldier-academician, Brig (Dr) P S Siwach served in the Army for 34 years, before taking voluntary retirement and joining the academic world. He joined Manipal Group as Director ICICI Manipal Academy at Bangalore, training the Probationary Officers (POs) of ICICI Bank. He helped in mentoring a new Training Academy in banking industry, leading to several banks training their POs with Manipal. In 2011, he was part of the raising team of Manipal University Jaipur (MUJ). He moved to take on a new challenge of raising a School of Vocational Programmes at JECRC University, Jaipur, to impart Bachelor of Vocation (BVoc) and Master of Vocation (MVoc), new undergraduate and post graduate degree courses recently permitted by UGC. He then moved to Shridhar University as Vice Chancellor, improving the intake by nearly 300%. Presently he is the Vice Chancellor of Mangalayatan University Aligarh.

Dr Balakrishna P Shetty Vice Chancellor of Sri Siddhartha University Tumkur, since 2012, Dr Balakrishna P Shetty has been Post Graduate Examiner in Radiology since 2002, Professor of Radiology since 1998, Head Dept. of Radiology, Director of PG studies since 1995 and President, Indian Radiology and Imaging Association (IRIA), 2015. He is an International Journal Reviewer with Medical Science Educator (Springer Publication) and International Abstract Reviewer with Consortium of Universities for Global Health, USA. After MBBS, MD, DNB in Radio Diagnosis he had obtained American College of Radiology Accredited Fellowships in Paediatric Radiology, from UTMB Galveston, TX USA and Body Imaging from Baylor College of medicine, Houston TX, USA and worked in MD Anderson Hospital. He has also worked in Yale University (Nuro Radiology), Texas Children Hospital and the prestigious Cleveland Clinic (Cadio-Radiology).

Dr S K Salwan Ashish Gupta Mr. Ashish Gupta is the co-founder and Trustee of Ashoka University. He is also the founder of a business accelerator cum family office, Benori Ventures LLP that mentor and invest in Delhi based startups. Previously, he co-founded and served as the Chief Operating Officer and Global Business Unit Head of Financial Services at Evalueserve until April 2016. He started his career with McKinsey where he served as an Engagement Manager and spent about five years with them. He received his MBA from The Carnegie Mellon University and B. Tech. in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. He recently graduated from the senior executive leadership program at Harvard Business School.

August 2017

Expert of Strategic Defence and Defence Technologies, Dr S K Salwan has been Director of three National Level Laboratories and Establishment of Defence Research. He has been Advisor (Strategic Projects) of DRDO Ministry of Defence. He was appointed as Emeritus Scientist DRDO in 2003. He was Vice Chancellor Punjab Technical University Jalandhar (2003-2008) and Founder Vice Chancellor Apeejay Stya University (20082011). He has held DRDO Nagchowdhary Chair Distinguished Professor and DRDO Fellow (2011-2013). Chairman, Armament Research Board and Chairman Research Council ARDE Pune, he is also member of Advisory Group of Experts, Ministry of Railways, and member of Board of Governors of universities in India and abroad. He is member of ‘Make in India’ in Body Armour, NITI Aayog, Govt. of India, and founder member of Integrate Guided Missiles Programme of Defence Research under the leadership of Dr APJ Abdul Kalam.

As a general rule, teachers teach more by what they are than by what they say.

Dr Shrihari Honwad

Prof B S Satyanarayana

Prof Chintakindi Sanjay

Dr Shrihari Honwad is a senior academician with administrative and governance experience, exposure and contributions to various functions from teaching at one end of spectrum to managing institutions at the other. Beginning as a teaching assistant with Industrial exposure, his career spans through a path where he became a researcher, and eventually a teacher. His progression in teaching also saw responsibilities of Head of Department, Vice Principal, Principal of a college with 2000 students, and Vice Chancellor of a university with 12000 students. He had the privilege of getting into academic governance through Board of Studies and Academic Council and Institutional governance through Board of Management and Board of Governors. He has experience of working in unitary, deemed and affiliating universities in India. He has also visited several universities abroad in Spain, France, Turkey, Malaysia and Thailand.

Currently serving as Vice-Chancellor of BML Munjal University (BMU), India, Professor B S Satyanarayana holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Cambridge University UK. He has over 32 years Industry, R&D institutions, Academics and Government Policy Experience, working in India, UK and Japan, with international partners in US, South Korea, Russia and EU countries. Key outcomes include many first-time novel products, process and instrumentation, besides multiple fold increase in revenues in the short span of time, and initiating and implementing projects worth over $50 million. He holds two patents, has filled for ten patents, published over 140 papers in journals and conference proceedings, guided three PhDs and 8 are currently working under his guidance. He has entered new domains, created new facility, trained new teams, and demonstrated new technologies, bringing in frugal innovation.

Having joined GITAM University, Hyderabad as a Founder Campus Director in June 2009 till July 2014, Professor Chintakindi Sanjay is Dean and Principal, School of Technology, GITAM University and has been a member of Board of Management and Academic Council since 2009. He is a certified Corporate Director of World Council for Corporate Governance, UK and has visited most of the South Asian countries for research and presenting papers at various international conferences. Prof Sanjay has more than 24 years of experience in industry, research and teaching and had worked four years as an Associate Professor of Manufacturing Engineering and Management at Government Universities in Malaysia and Singapore. He was a keynote speaker for more than 40 international and national conferences and a member of advisory and technical committee for more than 60 international conferences.

Prof (Dr) A K Bakhshi

Prof (Dr) Anoop Swarup

Presently Vice-Chancellor of PDM University, Bahadurgarh in Haryana (India), Professor (Dr) A K Bakhshi is on leave from the University of Delhi where he holds the post of Sir Shankar Lal Professor of Chemistry since 1996. He was Executive Director of Tertiary Education Commission (TEC), Mauritius, Vice-Chancellor of U.P. Rajarshi Tandon Open University, and also Head, Department of Chemistry, University of Delhi. Prof Bakhshi is also Chairman of Centre for e-Learning as well as Chairman of Guru Angad Dev Teaching â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Learning Centre at SGTB Khalsa College, University of Delhi. He was also Chairman of the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) project in Chemistry of the CSIR, Member of the Standing Committee of the National Mission on Education through ICT (NMEICT) of the Govt. of India, Director of the Institute of Lifelong Learning (ILLL), University of Delhi and the Centre for Professional Development in Higher Education (CPDHE).

An MSc (1st Position Gold Medal), MS, MBA (AGSE, Australia), MPhil (Gold Medal), PhD (BU), PSC, FZSI, FAB, FWBI (Melbourne), FRSA (London), Professor (Dr) Anoop Swarup has been recipient of Presidential Award (2003). With over 35 years of distinguished professional experience in diverse roles as a poet, peace activist, life scientist, futurist, social entrepreneur, civil servant and an educationist, he is recipient of UNESCAP Honâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ble Mention, Global Environment Outlook Reviewer with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, (UNEP) that was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Amrita Devi Bishnoi Medal, Citation by the Zoological Society of India in Environmental Studies, and Hiroshima Peace Award, Highest Award of Recognition by Soka University, Tokyo. He was appointed as United Nations Representative with the UNSC at New York by UN Secretary General Ban ki Moon, and is Founding Vice Chancellor of Jagran Lakecity University.

August 2017

#UNCONFERENCE Prof (Dr) Devendra Pathak

Prof (Dr) Lalit Kumar Sagar

With more than 25 years of teaching experience as Professor (Economics & Finance) in India and UK, Professor (Dr) Devendra Pathak has been Principal, Bank’s Staff Training College, Director of premier B-Schools, and Vice Chancellor of four universities. He has over 15 years of work exposure as Economist in multidisciplinary stream of banking education, research and administration in top management. He has worked for United Nations Development Program in areas of Project Evaluation, Demographic studies, and Manpower Planning, piloted deliberations of ASSOCHAM, CII, FICCI, various Chamber of Commerce, AIMA and domestic and international fora, and guided research work leading to the award of 6 MPhil and 12 PhDs. Eight more Research Scholars are pursuing PhD under his guidance through different universities. He has international exposure of working and teaching in London and Hong Kong besides training and participation in international seminars and workshops.

Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive Officer, Venkateswara Group of Universities, Arunachal Pradesh, India, Professor (Dr) Lalit Kumar Sagar has over 25 years’ experience in higher education. As the VC, he provides leadership, focusing on the Policy, Structure, Governance, Accreditation, Research, and Pedagogy and Human Resource Development of the University (Higher Education) and provides vision and guidance to the core team which will enhance institutional growth, stability, and excellence. His specializations are Educational Leadership, Administration and Management Teacher Education, Satellite Teacher Training, Teleconferencing, Videoconferencing, Open and Distance Education, Higher Education in India, USA, Australia and UK, Educational Technology and International Marketing of Higher Education. His experience includes vast international educational experience.

Prof (Dr) Raj Singh Vice Chancellor of Rayat-Bahra University (RBU) Mohali, Professor (Dr) Raj Singh was previously the first Vice Chancellor of the G D Goenka University, Gurgaon, first Vice Chancellor of Ansal University, Gurgaon and first Vice Chancellor of Amity University Madhya Pradesh at Gwalior. He has been the Vice Chancellor at Amity University, Jaipur and Pro-Vice Chancellor at Amity University Uttar Pradesh, NOIDA. He was also the Chief Operating Officer – Education at Ansal API, New Delhi; Director General of Amity Business School, NOIDA and Director of ICFAI Business School (IBS) New Delhi from inception in 1995. He served the Indian Air Force for about 14 years prior to entering the field of education. A postgraduate in Economics and Doctorate in Strategic Cost Management, he was topper of the coveted Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) program from the Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts of India (ICFAI) and has had an exemplary career spanning 35 years.

Prof H L Verma Prof (Dr) S C Joshi An eminent educational administrator and teacher, Professor (Dr) S C Joshi has over 45 years of rich experience in administration, teaching and consultancy. He has a proven core competency in providing academic leadership with a commitment for excellence. A PhD from IIT Roorkee, he was appointed as Principal of the National Defence Academy, Pune, serving there for nearly two decades. He has served in corporate as Principal Consultant (Higher Education) in Educomp Solutions Limited and was associated with their project of establishing a private university in NCR. He has served as Director of Uttaranchal Institute of Technology, Dehradun. Prior to assuming charge of Vice Chancellor, Uttaranchal University he served as Director General of Uttaranchal Group of Institutions, a premier educational group in the field of Law, Engineering, Management and IT.

August 2017

Vice Chancellor at Jagan Nath University, Bahadurgarh (Haryana), Professor H L Verma has earlier served as Pro Vice Chancellor at Guru Jambheshwar University of Science and Technology, Hisar. He has more than 40 years of teaching and administrative experience in higher education institutions. With two sponsored research publications to his credit, he has supervised the research of 24 PhDs. His list of books published include Management of Working Capital, Funds Management in Commercial Banks, Developments in Accounting – in Two Volumes, Encyclopaedia of Cooperative Management – in Five Volumes, Studies in Human Resource Development – in Three Volumes, and Extension Services for Quality Management in Technical Education. Prof H L Verma has had 63 research papers published.

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Power of

Experiential

Learning

KAVITA SANGHVI

August 2017

ON1E YEAR ON Merging Creativity With Literacy

If a child can’t learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn. -Ignacio ‘Nacho’ Estrada

xperiential learning is learning by doing with reflection as its core strength. Very often when you mention the term it is confused with experimental learning. An experiment is an investigation in which a hypothesis is scientifically tested. Experiment is definitely one aspect but experiential covers a range of aspects. To understand what and how experiential learning can be implemented in school, it is important to understand the model primarily.

ally doing. The only way to find out what students are actually doing is to observe what they are doing, not, unfortunately, to ask teachers what students have done after the fact, and even less to look at the results of student work after they have engaged in the task. This task determines the success of the lesson and can be worked on by the teacher to ensure that: 1. Task is related to curriculum

Let us understand the cycle through a concrete example.

2. It is experiential in nature involving student’s participation at all stages

A Physics teacher wishes to teach static electricity to students. She divides the class into groups and to each group she hands over a range of activities to be conducted. The first group rubs a balloon against their hair and attempts to see if it sticks on the wall, the second attempts to rub two balloons against each other and see what it might attract or repel, the third group brings charged objects towards a gold leaf electroscope and observes the effects. Therefore the first stage – Concrete Experience - is where the learner experiences an activity through lab work or project.

3. Students are engaged

After the activity, the teacher conducts Reflective Observation during which the learner reflects on the experiment or activity conducted. Ex: After reflection and discussions facilitated by the teacher during Abstract Conceptualisation, the learner arrives at the concept of static electricity through the activities conducted. He or she can now confidently explain the causes and effects as it is backed by observation and research. The learner now applies the concept learned during Active Experimentation to new situations using critical thinking skills. Ex: How are cars painted? As per the Instructional Core by Richard Elmore, Harvard University Graduate School of Education, ‘tasks predict performance’. What predicts performance is what students are actu-

4. It demands students to use HOTS [Higher Order Thinking Skills] This can be easily integrated into every curriculum by taking few weeks before the onset of the new academic year by the Subject Heads along with the teachers to do intensive planning. By following the steps mentioned below experiential learning can be a reality:

the community and environment. Every school has the responsibility today to sensitize students towards the world’s problems because when they move out, they need to be responsible citizens who will promote peace and harmony. Moreover, with the environment degradation happening all over, it is vital that becoming conscious at a young age will instil strong values with the years to come. Experiential learning lends itself very beautifully to instilling these strong values. A concrete example of this would be that teachers link their topics to the current world problems like while teaching the topic ‘Electric current’ make students aware of their home electricity bills. Ask them to compare bills with each other and understand the differences. Empower them to address what changes they could make to their daily life to reduce their bills and share the knowledge with their family. This can be further taken to study energy losses in school and steps to control it.

2. Create year plan for every subject and have teachers team up for common topics.

Sometimes, projects could be given which make students more responsible. In one school, the project given was to do a data analysis of the paper used by every section of the school. The students realized that there was a lot of paper wastage. Meetings were held with the management, staff and parents and the following year, all circulars were mailed, the handbooks made of recycled paper, and all old papers and magazines were sent to recycling units.

3. Help teachers create unit plans which have well defined objectives, tasks which help achieve the objectives and the assessment plans to measure the learning outcome.

Another school started with their own compost pits to recycle wet waste and use the compost to grow new saplings. These saplings are then sold to parents to spread the green efforts.

4. Ensure that the tasks are experiential, well researched and related to the sustainable development goals laid down by the United Nations http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-developmentgoals/ wherever they can be linked as every experiential cycle desires that students take the learning back to day to day life and contribute positively to

Students have a lot of power, it only needs to be redirected and the results are amazing.

1. Map the curriculum at the onset of the year moving from the highest class to lowest class. Ensure that you involve all your teachers in the mapping as only through collaborative efforts will they own up to the accountability.

Over the years I have realized everything has to do with mindset. If one is open to new ideas, new challenges, new learning then the process becomes a delight and the product so striking, that it propels you to build upon it further.

August 2017

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ON1E YEAR ON Merging Creativity With Literacy

INTERACTIVE CURRICULUM:

DESIGN DO’S

esigning curriculum for schools can be challenging, especially when considering creating for international students or second language learners. In order to create a curriculum that has high interest and is rich in content, a designer must be aware of learners’ needs, teachers’ ability, and access to resources. All these factors play a major role in the design and implementation process. Here are a few core principles to follow when designing curriculum for any group of learners. Start with learner outcomes, next determine methods of assessing and documenting learner understanding, and finish with planned instructional learning experiences. Curriculum should be designed using

a reverse methodology focusing on learner outcomes. A reverse design method begins the process by first determining the expected learner behaviours and what should be demonstrated upon completion of content standards. To initiate this process, the curriculum blueprint should include the standards to be covered. Standards need to be clearly indicated to show exactly what leaners will ascertain and how to show proficiency. Next, objectives need to be identified for each standard. This will give instructors a detailed description of learner expectations. Objectives should be written with clear quantifiable goals using descriptive verbs such as Blooms Taxonomy. Including pacing will provide the rate at which standards should be covered. Arrange standards to fit within the

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annual school calendar, in addition to how many weeks for each. Finally, materials and resources should be listed for instructors to refer to content in the primary book. Additional suggested materials can be included to enrich subject matter. These can include additional books, websites, videos, and any other grade level appropriate material. So how will you know if learners are meeting content standards and objectives? Designing assessment and methods of collecting evidence will assist instructors in determining learner understanding. Assessment design should be embedded and continuous throughout the curriculum. Including various forms of summative and formative assessment will foster a range of opportunities for learners to demon-

If we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow. -John Dewey

Training specialist and international curriculum developer, Rashenah Walker on designing curriculum to improve student performance

strate understanding. Create evaluations to be interesting and challenging by including portfolios, performance based, and interactive components to provide a variety of approaches to collect evidence of student performance. Assessment should be aligned with standards and visibly define success criteria. After standards have been organized and assessment tools created, the final component is designing instructional strategies to initiate meaningful learning experiences. Designing instructional strategies can vary depending on how well the designer knows the intended learners, teacher’s abilities, and availability of resources. Incorporating strategies that are engaging and specific to objectives, will allow instruc-

tors to have a clear perspective of learners’ abilities. This can be done by incorporating innovative strategies such as the Flipped Class. This methodology increases student learning due to instruction taking place primarily at home through the use of pre-recorded lessons. Class time is used for focus groups, one-onone instruction, and learners performing tasks that display skill knowledge. Another engaging strategy is through the use of gamification. Using games creates a relaxing classroom environment where students can demonstrate mastery with extreme interest. Any common game such as Bingo, Jenga, Twister, and Musical Chairs can be adapted to practice vocabulary, formulas, and key concepts.

Designers must also include modifications and accommodations in instructional strategies for SEN (Special Educational Needs) and high ability students. Modifying the curriculum to be more challenging for high achievers will provide enrichment and extend learning. This could include a test-out option, independent study, or additional projects. For SEN students providing accommodations and modifications such as alternative ways to respond, extended time, and reduced assignments will offer the necessary platform for students to be successful. By following these key concepts, the design process will be effortless and produce a curriculum that is comprehensive and compliant with any education system requirements.

August 2017

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OPTIMUM PARENTING Dr JAWAHAR SURISETTI, educationist and psychologist, on how to extract the best from your child

August 2017

ON1E YEAR ON Merging Creativity With Literacy

The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education. -Martin Luther King, Jr.

arents need to be aware of how to motivate and guide children to recognise and pursue their interests. I will try to summarize some of the highlights from my books ‘Love Your Kid’ and ‘Go To Hell Or Come To Me’, to show how we could draw out the best from our children.

Have conversations: The art of talking to kids is important for parenting. As the child grows, the meaningfulness of the conversations too increases. But conversation is more important. The engagement itself gives the child a lot of scope for expressing his feelings and also strengthens the belief that his views are listened to. In these conversations, there has to be a lot of listening to be done by the parent instead of butting in and imposing his view on the child.

Let them be as they are: Every parent wishes to see his or her reflection in his child. But every human being is different and this process of conditioning the child to our wishes and desires is counterproductive because it does not match with the inherent nature of the child. Such conflicting impositions lead to trauma and sometimes growth of submissive personalities which is detrimental in future. In case of non-submission there will be conflict at teenage when the child rebels and there is dissonance in the family.

Openly show appreciation: This is a very crucial factor that motivates the child to achieve more if the

interests and abilities that he or she displays are appreciated. We clearly show our displeasure in things that we don’t like in what they do, but we seldom show appreciation for the abilities or interests that they possess irrespective of our liking or disliking. A bird’s eye view needs to be taken of their lives so that the parent sees not just the son or daughter but also the peer group member, school student and the other roles that the child plays. We see our children mostly from a single perspective; hence the discord.

4. Show him the way: Lecturing the child to do this or that is easy for the parent but the child understands that it’s plain lecture without action so the seriousness of its impact is questioned. Instead, if the parent shows something by action, the child would love to follow it or take things more seriously. If you ask the child to put his bag in place after coming from school, he is also observing if you keep things in place when you come from the office. Though he may not openly say so, the impact of your pronunciations is reduced if it is not followed by motivating actions.

Let the emotions flow: As a kid, we as parents are more open about our emotions. The child feels the warmth but as the child grows, we try not to show our emotions too openly. Our child is our child. The touch plays a very important role in communication of emotions. While words play an important role, touch communicates without any word

being said. And in teenage, children want the warmth more than ever. So a hug is very comforting when the child comes back from school. Too many words after the tired child is home makes the child shut down his attention and what we say falls on deaf ears. Just that little show of emotion is enough to show that we are with them.

Give space: Parents become more ambitious and fill up all the space available with the child. So the child goes to schools, practices swimming, goes for tuitions, learns music and studies at home. The parent wants to put so many things that there is no vacant space in the child’s life and feels satisfied that the life of the child is focused. It is necessary that we allow the child a space every day to breathe, introspect, interact, reflect and understand his life. He should be enjoying what he is doing and it should not be done just to fill up the time.

7. Show them to accept failures with dignity and success with humility: Life is full of failures and successes. If, as a parent, we cocoon our children from failures and tom-tom their successes, a false sense of ego will penetrate the child’s brain. He believes he is what is not. So it is necessary that we expose our children to failures so that they learn to accept them and be motivated to do better in future. On the other hand, the child should accept success with humility and remain grounded. This will help him in future. This is life.

August 2017

ON1E YEAR ON

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Merging Creativity With Literacy

CREATING LIFE-LONG

LEARNERS

roliferation of technology in classrooms has been transforming learning over a decade now. Whether it is using presentation through projections or simulations, or interactive interface using smart boards in class, or just using tech tools to make learning interesting, teachers have adopted new innovation and technology to best suit the needs of their learners.

Educators today have an increased challenging task to break the traditional passive mould of teaching learning and rethink the way teaching learning takes place in a class more than ever before. This includes not only restructuring the way they teach but also bridging the gap between the digital leaners and the learning environment – not only in terms of physical envi-

ronment but also in the way studentteacher relationship has existed. They have in their class learners who are restless, they speak a different language – digital language and they are fundamentally different from the learners of yesteryears. Students of today want to learn in an interactive environment, they like to take control over what they are learning, how they are learning and when they are learning. For 21st century learners, the required skill set not only requires knowledge acquisition but developing skills of thinking critically, working collaboratively, constructing knowledge, self-regulation and effective communication. Thus the bar is rising for teachers to think of new ways to engage students in learning. Thankfully they have great innovative

August 2017

tools and new technology to support them in creating enriching engaging environments for learning to happen.

PERSONALISED LEARNING ENVIRONMENT Teachers today are using innovation and technology to provide a more focused and personalized learning platform to bring learning closer to the learner. Teachers are able to tailor instruction, content, methodology and assessment to personalise learning. This breaks the factory-style mass production of average performing students to a personalised level of indepth understanding. Learning moves from ‘one-size-fits-all’ instruction approach to differentiated instructional approaches in one-on-one or small groups using technology.

I am not a teacher, but an awakener. -Robert Frost

Education evangelist and Founding Director of De Pedagogics, MEENAKSHI UBEROI on using innovation and technology to improve student learning

Accessibility to learning analytics data assists teachers in identification of individual student’s needs and provides them additional support learning to make microteaching possible.

RESEARCH AND INFORMATION FLUENCY

Modern innovative and technology tools allow teachers to design for their students an array of personalised tasks to choose from, in accordance with their abilities and capabilities, to construct and convey understanding. This is done by engaging students through interactive platforms where teachers provide each student with their own digital space to work on which is accessible to their teachers who can track their student’s learning journey and guide them in real-time. Digital tools are significantly enhancing the learning experience by helping teachers use class time for interactions and Socratic-style instruction that matter most, rather than only finding tools to capture students’ attention which allows space for deeper learning rather than surface experiences only.

Teachers are using technology to take their students’ learning beyond books and are using content in textbooks as the starting point of exploring concepts. Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively to support their own learning and contribute to the learning of others. This enables them to demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology. In this process they develop research and information fluency by looking for information using search engines built within the technology tools and sifting relevant information to construct knowledge of their own which is then verified by the teacher through authentic information. Thus teachers are enabling students to be independent informed active learners rather than being passive consumers of information disseminated to them through boring lecture-style teaching.

CULTIVATING SELF-DIRECTED LEARNERS Easy access and availability of varied learning platforms and learning management systems have enabled learning to take place anytime anywhere and, at the same time, being managed

and monitored by teachers. Teachers are able to create and manage content library providing coursework, webcontent, reference material and authentic resources, to their students giving them flexible learning opportunities. This enables students to have access to learning material which they can use to plan and conduct research, manage projects, solve problems, and verify and communicate understanding effectively. The accessibility through a learning management system allows both students and teachers to track and evaluate progress and enables teachers to identify and cater to learning needs of students. Teachers can build further on student’s learning and scaffold new findings through real-time dialogue, instructional feedback and annotations to facilitate collective construction of knowledge. This gives an opportunity to teachers to harness selfdirected learning abilities in their students by keeping them in-charge of their own learning in a monitored manner. Technology and innovation alone cannot transform learning but mindful strategizing by educationists, to integrate these tools with principles of learning, can enhance knowledge acquisition experiences and accelerate performance. Teachers across the globe are using technology to design strategies to enhance learning and accelerate achievement by cultivating in their students the ability to be curious, adaptive, innovative and informed life-long learners.

August 2017

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Eradicating Educational

INEQUITY SHAHEEN MISTRI on the need to ensure every child receives an excellent education, so that we, as a nation, can find our light and our true potential

August 2017

ON1E YEAR ON Merging Creativity With Literacy

A great teacher is someone who can learn from his students, who can learn with them, and learns for them. -Robert John Meehan (American Educator)

ndia is home to 1.4 billion people and the median age is 27. Between now and 2025, more than 25% of the people entering the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s workforce will be Indian. The true potential of our nation, however, will only be realized when we provide our children the right skills and foundations. Yet today--almost 71 years since our Independence--we are failing to give our children the education they are guaranteed by right.

THE CHALLENGE

an education should be holistic and go beyond the cognitive. Its purpose should be inspiring. We should not only teach children skills, but impart the values that will enable them to become responsible citizens. Yet the skills and mindsets that are being taught today are largely irrelevant to the 21st century and the progressive thinking it requires. Unfortunately, both our content and our methods are outdated, and only a privileged few have access to a quality education.

The Indian education system is plagued by many complex factors and there is an urgent need to reinvent it. Although programs such as Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan have made great strides in improving access to education, by building schools and enrolling students, many classrooms are overcrowded and run-down. Where there are schools and children, there is often a dearth of good teachers, particularly in low-income communities. This gap between education for the underprivileged and more privileged is enormous, and contributes to growing inequality.

How much a student learns is inextricably tied to the motivation and investment of their teacher, and we are facing a deficit of engaged educators. Where previously a teacher (guru) guided a studentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s development both academically and otherwise, today the role of the teacher is both limited and unclear. The value of teachers and education may vary across the globe, but in India, most people believe an education is critical. Nevertheless, we must improve the perception of teaching professionals and highlight their instrumental role in helping students meet their potential.

Most importantly, we lack a focus on quality. When we think of education today, we imagine students preparing for exams so they can join the rat race. We think of benches lined with children ready to learn by rote. But

THE WAY FORWARD Just as these factors are working together to hold our children back, we too must come together to eradicate education inequity. Our constant

search for quick fixes and our siloed approach have been largely responsible for our lack of progress. There are more than 300 million children in India-the scale of the challenge is enormous. Therefore, what we truly need is a broad peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s movement. When whole communities get involved and think of ways to improve the education system, change is bound to happen. We must build a critical mass of leaders, including parents, bureaucrats, corporations, politicians, school administrators, teachers and students who are interconnected. For example, someone working in the education sector may focus on changing pedagogy, but support for that change may come from bureaucrats. A parent may advocate for improvements to a local school and may lean on the private sector to mobilize resources. Each one of us can join the movement by dedicating time or resources to the education sector. Eliminating educational inequity will not happen overnight. It will be the result of sustained effort by committed people who are clear about the vision, and are willing to reinvent themselves to make it a reality. The vision is that each child, irrespective of social or financial background, will receive an excellent education, so that we, as a nation, can find our light and our true potential.

August 2017

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THE IMPORTANCE OF EDUCATING THE POOR

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” -Nelson Mandela “Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.” -John Dewey

n 1740 South Carolina had passed a law making it a criminal offense, punishable by imprisonment, to help blacks learn to read and write. Most Indians are familiar with Thomas Macaulay’s warning in 1840, about how the colonists needed to destroy the then prevailing excellent Indian educational system that imparted both character and culture, before they could hope to conquer this country. No better testimony to the power of education to transform the poor! South Carolina was petrified by education’s ability to metamorphose. Macaulay knew that education had imbedded the culture and the living philosophies of India into its people. It is this understanding that led Purkal Youth Development Society (PYDS), to practice this as our business for near-

August 2017

ly two decades. We educate the poorest. Education remains the key to escape poverty while poverty remains the biggest obstacle to education. Targeted investments at PYDS are designed to counteract the effects of poverty on educational achievements, via intensive preschool help, extended school hours, providing healthcare and nutrition support, as well as parental training and mentoring programmes. We realize that poverty is an inter-generational pattern. This is about a family where the father and mother were uneducated and unskilled. They lived hopelessly 15 years ago. With a piece of unirrigated land they were eking out a life. The man was 34, married with two daughters and two sons. With very little cash, they lived in penury.

A child educated only at school is an uneducated child. -George Santayana

G K Swamy, FounderSecretary Purkal Youth Development Society, on the only tool with the power to break the cycle of poverty

poverty at age 13, survived with her robust emotional intelligence, escaping suicide. With 8 years of PYDS care, she is now a proud executive paying back to our society, a monetary contribution she believes she owes. Her robust emotional intelligence is complemented by her quality education. This is a case that helps me conclude that people, who faced acute adversity, emerge much stronger than those who did not go through this fire.

Despairing he lived dishonestly and remained inebriated. Chance and grace brought the children to PYDS and all are now at various stages of a career. The master of the house has become a teetotaller; built a home and is building his family. Education gave him hope. They have moved from poverty to looking forward to a fulfilling life. Education has helped two young boys from the upper reaches of Himalayas, who migrated practically penniless. They are now an electronic engineer and a merchant marine officer. Growth of their mind and their attitude to life has helped these two boys plan a life of comfort and luxury. PYDS made this possible. A girl who was abandoned due to

One example can trigger paradigm changes in many minds. The daughter of a roadside vegetable vendor won a scholarship to the US. Stimulated, we now have three from the school in the US. SAT is now an aspiration. One successful child changing into a self-confident bread earner can change the fortunes of the entire family. A family of 9 children who were rag pickers on the streets are all attempting successful lives, investing in education. Their next generation will prosper, since mothers have discovered the power of education. Investment by PYDS in food security, nutrition and education has helped to reduce malnutrition and increase the childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ability to learn. Educated girls help prevent maternal mortality by making sure of trained healthcare during births. Lower birth rates have already happened as well as delayed marriages and motherhood. One of our Muslim girls, from an

extremely poor family of 11, tells me how she escaped marriage at 16 because we took her on providing boarding and lodge. She finished her high school very creditably, and in four years will qualify as a physiotherapist. The educational experiment that we have carried out has helped our direct beneficiaries escape poverty and prevented the transmission of poverty to future generations. But what children learn matters. We need to focus on quality, learning and teachers. Contents are important since it must help communities tackle changes, preserve nature and its resources. Poor children cannot access higher education because of their inability to afford tuition and fees. If we promise our children a future, we need to make it attainable. At PYDS we also make quality higher education affordable. Immense lack of job opportunities for youth is a major challenge globally. Education for entrepreneurship and business management is important to educate and enable young people to develop their own business. Relevant technical and vocational education is an important support for this purpose. An education that promotes innovation and efficiency can contribute to productivity. Indeed education is the only tool that has the power to break the poverty cycle.

August 2017

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FITTING In

Vs. Standing Out Hindi film actress, producer and social activist, Juhi Chawla on how the modern education system fits children into narrow boxes

August 2017

ON1E YEAR ON Merging Creativity With Literacy

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence. -Robert Frost

s I'm growing and getting to know more and more, I realize that the way we teach our children, our education system, it is pathetic. We burden our children with books, books, more books; we expect them to memorize things. The worst part is we teach them what to think instead of just allowing them to think, think differently. That's what we do. If they think differently they feel they are doing something wrong, whereas that is the right way to be! Though our education system seems to say that 'Oh we will allow our children to flower in whatever they wish to be’, we are somehow still only pressurizing them to perform in academics. I think it should be scrapped totally - we should somewhere look back at our gurukuls and see the things that they were doing which were valuable. Yes, our children need to step out and need to know the English language, but a lot of what is written in those books… I know, I've done it, been there; learnt it for my exams, all the history, geography, all those many subjects and all those details. As a kid, I learnt it just because I had to literally vomit it out at my exams, but that's it. I didn't really want to remember any of it. I didn't give a damn if I didn't and a lot of it I didn't really need. I don't see why the whole pressure, why always the competition between children to beat each other at something… it doesn't make you a great person at the end of the day. Our kind of education - very nicely put by one of our gurus, Sadhguruji - he said,

we do not today prepare our children today for the universe, we prepare our children for the universities. I totally don't agree with what's going on. I wish we could teach our children Sanskrit, I wish we would have yoga as compulsory. I wish we would have our cultural dance and music and actually not have that as a co-curricular but as a curricular. Our culture is so rich; if we teach our children according to our culture, they would become brilliant, brilliant adults.

piece by cheating. They could not understand our entire system of learning and imparting knowledge. They needed people to work in their offices because here was India, a huge country with a huge population, being ruled by a handful of British people. They needed people in their offices and so they introduced their schools in India to create the clerks, peons. That continued and came to be known as the modern system of education.

We need to know about computers, yes, we need to know the English language, that's all very well. But when we have the richest subjects of art, music, Sanskrit, yoga, we seem to push that aside, instead of having that take centre-stage. I really wish, as a nation, we would wake up. As parents, we could do something about it but so many of us are conditioned and we push our children into the rat race.

We have continued that system of education and really, you go to school, you learn what they teach you in the books, they put you into classrooms like boxes, they put you into uniforms so that everybody is one, looks like one, behaves like one. Modern education does that whether one realizes it or not but this is what happens subconsciously through those books. Those books are the same for everybody. You are taught what is in there. You are told to memorize what is in there and then you start believing in what is in there and if you think differently, then they think you are wrong. So, for all your growing years, you are pushed into this system so by the time you come out, you are conditioned to a certain way of thinking and then it takes you a whole lot of your life to realize that you didn't have to fit into a box or a uniform or be like everybody else. You are not supposed to fit in if you want to stand out.

So a few hundred years ago, before the British came into our country, our country was the richest in the world. Trade was carried out from here. Trading in spices, handicrafts; culturally, historically it was the richest country, it was responsible for 27% of the world's GDP. India was known as Sone Ki Chidiya. The world wanted to come to India. In the north of India, the literacy rate was 99% and in the south of India it was 100%. Our children used to learn in gurukuls; there were no beggars, no robbers, and no cheaters. Then the English came on the pretext of trade. Eventually the British managed to stay on, cheat, manipulate and take over the country piece by piece by

Our education system is really pathetic, we need to re-examine it completely. We are the country from where came the mother of all languages, Sanskrit. But we do not teach our own children that!

August 2017

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HEADS &

TALES W

hen I was growing up, stories, storytelling, reading of story books, exchanging of anecdotes, listening and sharing happened very organically. There was no need to categorise or discuss it or measure the development through these activities in terms of mental processing. But the world today is very different. Attention spans are short, multi-tasking is the need of the hour and we do not want to spend our time and energy doing anything which does not provide value to our growth and well-being. So now, the traditional pastime of storytelling has to be examined under a microscope and the strands of its importance gently separated and displayed. What came naturally to people of all ages needs to be plated and displayed like a gourmet delicacy because, if we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t do so, we

are in danger of losing it and its multifarious benefits completely. Stories have always been an integral part of our existence and the glue that connects all humanity. The ability to listen to, comprehend and tell stories has a facilitative effect on cognitive processes and personal development. Understanding of narrative involves very complex mental activity and children who engage in listening to or reading stories, greatly enlarge their strategies for grasping meaning, their knowledge and understanding of the world around them and their imaginations. And yet, we often think of storytelling only as a form of entertainment and remain oblivious to the full impact of its importance. Children take to stories like fish to

August 2017

water. Their natural curiosity, sense of fun and openness to new ideas and out of the box scenarios make fertile ground for creating, listening to and telling stories. So for the magic of stories to work and the organic learning thereof to happen, we adults need only to be eager listeners, enthusiastic tellers and dynamic travellers, dropping all boundaries of time and space, ready to take off with our young explorers to the boundaries of their imagination. While encouraging children to tell stories provides the obvious benefits of improving their expressive language skills like diction, pronunciation, voice modulation, pausing and stressing, there are deeper benefits as their selfconfidence is bolstered and they develop the valuable skill of effective communi-

Children must be taught how to think, not what to think. - Margaret Mead

Valentina Trivedi on the link between storytelling and cognitive development in children

cation. Children have an amazing ability to make up a story as they are telling it. So if they are not told to â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;be quietâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; all the time, their imagination can weave scintillating tales. A healthy imagination developed in childhood is associated with problem solving, openness to new ideas, out of the box thinking and risk taking â&#x20AC;&#x201C; all valuable assets in life as an adult too. When creating and telling stories, children take on different roles and try out different language uses, all of which help them on the journey from being externally regulated to internally regulated in cognition. In the school curriculum, giving children the space to create and tell stories is often sacrificed at the altar of reading and writing. Yet ironically, skills developed through storytelling and listening to stories also extend to enhance skills needed for effective reading and writing.

The classroom inadvertently becomes a place where each child is judged based on his ability to perform tasks set by teachers. In such a setting, the experience of listening to a story is a great equalizer. Listeners can participate fully without the fear of being judged or ridiculed. Stories enhance their motivation to learn and their receptivity to learning. Research shows that even students with low motivation and weak academic skills are more likely to listen, read, write and work in the context of storytelling. Effective communication entails not just speaking but good listening skills too. There are several mental processes simultaneously at work while listening. When a child grows up listening to stories, a love for language and the richness of its usage develops naturally, improving comprehension, vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, sequencing and associated skills. In the hush that falls as a child listens to a story being told, he is keenly focused on forming mental pictures and scaffolding his own learning, connecting the dots of prior knowledge, experience and his own reasoning. Social skills, persistence, engagement, how to take turns speaking, how to listen to others effectively, how to read between the lines, are all skills which are sharp-

ened by regularly listening to stories. In engaging with the characters of the stories and the narrative, children are able to appreciate points of view other than their own and develop finer sensibilities. They begin to appreciate goodness, humour, bravery and beauty of the characters in stories before they really experience and know these qualities themselves. A sense of aesthetics also starts developing. As we become a more intolerant, more divided society, there is an urgent need to inculcate these values in children, and they cannot be taught as part of the explicit curriculum. Storytelling is a time-honoured way of doing this naturally. It is my firm belief that reading, telling and listening to stories is not an idle pursuit but an urgent need of our times. Its far reaching effects can equip our children with not only the 4Cs of communication, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking vitally required for success, but enhance their emotional intelligence as well so that they are more responsible and sensitised global citizens, with a high happiness quotient, aware of their place in the world and responsibilities as a human being, beyond just earning a livelihood.

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Continuity in Commitment Lakshyaraj Singh Mewar of Udaipur on the link between education and the House of Mewar

August 2017

ON1E YEAR ON Merging Creativity With Literacy

The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts. -C.S. Lewis

have a firm belief in the power of 'Now'. I live in the present. Yet I am conscious of our age-old legacies and responsibilities. Education has been a continuing commitment of the House of Mewar in Udaipur. Let me begin with 1974 and the platforms built by my grandfather, His Late Highness Maharana Bhagwat Singhji, on which we have continued the trajectory of our developmental activities.

Recently the MMPS Principal Mr Sanjay Datta led a team to Australia under the Rajasthan Educators Program (REP). The team was exposed to contemporary learning processes and got deeper insights into global educational trends. They are now implementing their learnings for the benefit of our students and parents alike.

Maharana Mewar Public School (MMPS) was established under the aegis of Maharana Mewar Charitable Foundation and it has been evolving as a dynamic institution with every passing year. Today I am happy to share with readers that it compares favourably internationally in the field of education.

The dynamic evolution of Maharana Mewar Public School, as a modern educational institution, is a shining example of the transformation achieved by the former Royal State of Mewar, Udaipur. In the 21st century, the former Royal House has comprehensively integrated itself into the mainstream of democratic and independent India. At the same time, it is contributing to major societal and economic developmental programmes of both the State and Central governments.

In 2015-16 MMPS was conferred several prestigious awards, including those from the British Council, UK. It has been honoured with the ‘Best School Award’ from digital Learning and Education World magazines for three consecutive years. The school has hosted ‘World Music Festival’; its 28-piece Brass Band and full Bag Pipe Band occupies pride of place.

Through education and tourism-related ventures, new opportunities for growth and development are being harnessed for the benefit of the local communities. Employment and livelihood generation, increased household incomes and the betterment of the quality of lives of the people are some of the tangible results from the trajectory of this growth.

As you would have guessed, at MMPS we have given equal emphasis on the arts and crafts, sports and music, travel and exposure to the real world. Education, I believe, is incomplete without imbibing these skills and experiences.

FOCUS ON EDUCATION IN UDAIPUR

MMPS is aware of its role in involving parents not only in the education system at school but also in all round development of society. MMPS is sensitizing parents as active stakeholders in supporting holistic education for their wards. The school does not ignore the vital/ critical aspects of faculty motivation and exposure. MMPS is continuously facilitating and making available the support and providing adequate infrastructure to create exemplary role models among members of faculty.

Over the last 150 years, education and the establishment of educational institutions have been a priority focus of the Maharanas of Mewar. Few would remember that in the early 1870s, Maharana Shambhu Singh gave paramount importance to education. Though not formally educated himself, he was the first to set up a school for girls and thus promoted educational opportunities for all. Through the 1880s to 1940s, every generation of the Maharanas contributed to the growth of education: high schools, universities and institutes were set up during the respective reign of Maharana Fateh Singh and

Maharana Bhupal Singh. A major contribution was made by Maharana Fateh Singhji towards the establishment of the Banaras Hindu University. Similarly grants to Mayo College, Ajmer and other prestigious centres of education were routinely made. In July 2016, the Government Girls' Senior Secondary School, formerly known as Shambhu Ratna Pathshala, Jagdish Chowk, Udaipur was restored and extensive repairs were undertaken by the Maharana of Mewar Charitable Foundation (MMCF). The school was constructed during the reign of Maharana Shambhu Singh, the 71st Custodian of The House of Mewar (r. 1861 - 1874 AD). The school was established in 1864 AD at Jagdish Chowk, Udaipur. Presently it is administered by the District Education Officer (Secondary), Udaipur under the Directorate of Education, Government of Rajasthan, Bikaner. Presently 500 girls are studying in the school from Class IX to XII. Maharana of Mewar Charitable Foundation (MMCF) is fully committed towards giving the 150-year old school a new look. As the nodal organisation for the restoration, MMCF is utilising its in-house technical and financial resources to complete the project, not charging any fee for the works being undertaken for the school. However, MMCF expects an acknowledgment for its contribution in arranging and executing this project to be placed on record and also displayed on the premises. The work is being undertaken in two phases: Outer facade and two classrooms; Other classrooms and Hall. With the passage years and decades, the commitment of the House of Mewar towards education and educational institutions has only grown. With the blessings of the Supreme Lord of Mewar Parameshwaraji Maharaj Shree Eklingnath ji, I hope I will be able to do my best in the domain of education in the years to come.

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Education of Head, Heart & Hands Captain S.N.Panwar is a retired Education officer of Kendriya Vidyalaya Sanghthn , New Delhi.He is an eminent Educationst and a free-lancer writer.He has served the field of education as a lecturer for 8 years, Captain of Army Education Corps for six years,Principal of kendriya Vidyalaya for 18 years and an Education Officer for five years. During his aforesaid service he attended many conferences and he directed many Summer Courses in Mathematics for teachers. As an Education Officer he inspected Kendriya Vidyalayas of Gujrat State effectively. Moreover he was a member of Selection Board of Kendrya Vidyalaya Sanghathan for selecting teachers of various categories. After serving the field of education for 37 years, he retired on 31st March 1993.After retirement ,I am a free-lance writer and a Social worker.I have written many articles pertaining to the problems of education and society.About 350 articles have published in various News papers and popular magazines.I have written 22 books which were published by Prateek Prakashan Jodhpur.

August 2017

You educate a man; you educate a man. You educate a woman; you educate a generation. -Brigham Young

uring the British rule in India, Lord Macaulay, in his wellknown minutes of 1835, spelt out clearly that the aim of educating Indians was to create a class Indian by birth, blood and colour but British in taste, manners and outlook, who could staff the vast political and administrative machine as clerks. Further, both Wood and later Abott (1937) also stressed the need for manual activities in education for the sake of harmonious development of personality. Though Rabindranath Tagore had already deplored the ineffectiveness of mere book learning and stressed the need for (manual) work for a total education, it was Gandhi who proposed the scheme of Basic Education. The Wardha National Education conference (1937) formally approved the scheme of centering education around some form of manual and productive work. The second objective was to remove the distinction created between the labouring classes, who work with their hands, and the white collared class, who work with their head. After India’s Independence, realisation grew that there was lack of interaction between education and productive work. The Kothari Commission's Report (1964) introduced Work Experience as a curricular component of education at all the stages of school education. The objective was to provide a connection between the classes and the masses while enabling education to contribute to national productivity. Prof Ishwarbhai Patel in June 1977 suggested that there was a need to maintain flexibility in education and further suggested introducing socially useful productive work into the curriculum of the school. Thus the socialisation of the individual, along with his personal development, was to make a bigger contribution to national development while promoting national integration. The National Educational Conference held in New Delhi in 1977 under the chairmanship of S. Sriman Narayan stressed that education be devoted to productive, creative and recreative activities, at least half of which should be focussed on Socially Useful Productive Work of various kinds. Although Socially Useful Productive Work has been introduced in the school curriculum at all stages in our country, Work and Education are still considered as separate entities. Normally peo-

ple have the concept that they are educating their children to escape manual labour. A few craftsmen feel that if their children can earn their livelihood through manual work, there is no need of education. Further, the people of India have a notion that only education too often leads not to jobs but to unemployment, because the educated people want only white-collared jobs. Pupils have entered the educational system not prepared for work but to escape from the kind of work that makes the hands dirty. Unemployment among educated people is only due to an indifferent attitude towards manual work. The main aim of education - that work should be relevant to educational goals - has not been achieved due to the following reasons… 1.

There are no attractive, wellorganised and job oriented technical schools, where students can be prepared for specialised technical jobs after passing class VIII. Students who fail and drop out can join only a few trades of ITIs of the state governments, but the number of ITIs is insufficient to cope with the present situation. No parent desires to put his ward into such technical trades as blacksmithy, carpentry and motor mechanical in ITIs because the members of our society still look at such technical works as menial work done by the lower strata of society. Normally students who have failed in class VIII, X, or XII join the ITIs as a last resort. As such the environment of ITIs is not congenial for the other good students interested in technical jobs.

To provide jobs to the educated population is a burning problem of the day. It is, in fact, an international problem throughout the world. Although SUPW has been introduced at all stages in schools the aim of earning, while learning, could not be achieved. Love for technical work could not be created due to the heavy syllabus of other subjects, indifferent attitude and lack of interesting and attractive facilities in the schools. The inclusion of productive work in the curriculum throughout the educational system is a must. Now the concept of work should not clash with the child labour laws. The work should be relevant to educational goals, but at the same time, it should contribute to improve the employment and career prospects of the individual. There is a strong need to change the attitude, not only of students and teachers, but also of the parents who are sending their wards to school in order to acquire white collared jobs. This can be achieved by teaching moral values, character building and interaction between work and education in society. Dr Zakir Hussain was of the view that work is worship; work is disciplined perseverance for the realisation of a worthy ideal.

The number of courses in ITIs is limited, whereas private institutions provide coaching for a wide variety of courses such as beautician, interior decoration etc. One can start one’s own business with the help of adequate funding, or work in private jobs.

Normally parents do not know the capabilities of their children. They are only interested in making their wards an engineer or a doctor, irrespective of their capabilities, because of the social status. The wards of over-ambitious parents sometimes fail to achieve these goals. Parents should take the help of the Vocational Guidance Bureau to enable their wards to choose a career, so that they may develop satisfactorily in their future life. Moreover, parents should accept the suggestions of the Vocational Guidance Bureau even if they do not match their own desires.

There are polytechnic and engineering colleges in all the states, where students are admitted on the basis of marks obtained at the last public examination. Normally the last student admitted to such institutions has secured marks above 85. It shows the number of such institutions is not sufficient to fulfil the needs of the interested students in our society.

Work and education are separate entities but they are integral parts of the curriculum. Work establishes linkages between the syllabus and life situations. It links the school with the community, with the people, with conditions and the realities of life. The developmental process must include education of head, heart and hands of the individual; otherwise it is nondevelopmental type of education.

August 2017

PHILANTHROPY

EDUCATION’S

BIGGEST BENEFACTORS

SPOTLIGHTING THE CONTRIBUTION OF INDIA’S MOST GENEROUS GIVERS TO THE CAUSE OF EDUCATION

August 2017

ON1E YEAR ON Merging Creativity With Literacy

Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition. -Jacques Barzun

AJAY PIRAMAL We are born in an affluent family and are educated. Not everyone has this luxury. We have a responsibility to share

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ducation remains the pet philanthropic cause of India’s biggest givers. The Hurun Philanthropy List 2016 records the fact that 48% of donors contributed to education, donating a mammoth Rs.818 crore. Donations to Healthcare (Rs.208 crore), Sanitation (Rs.153 crore), Social Development (Rs.115 crore) and Rural Empowerment (Rs.86 crore) all trailed by a huge margin. It is a recognised fact that education plays a vital role in the uplift of society. And our country sadly lags far behind in this sector… Estimates peg the literacy rate in the country at just 65%, with a mere 39% of children reaching 10th grade. Of these, only 40% move to the next level. If one out of three children in grade five cannot read and write, 75% of the schools are multigrade, the problem further compounded by the fact that teachers are simply not trained adequately.

In this dismal scenario, it is heartening to see India’s most successful entrepreneurs go beyond mandatory CSR regulations to engage more profoundly to foster social change. Here’s applauding the country’s generous givers and their contribution to the cause of education…

Ajay Piramal heads the Piramal Group, which sells its products and services across 100 countries. He set up the Piramal Foundation that has created a difference in the lives of millions. The foundation supports healthcare services, rural education, potable water, livelihood creation and youth empowerment, improving access to primary healthcare, leadership capacity in government schools and for generating livelihood for rural women. PFEL, better known as the Piramal Foundation for Education Leadership, runs under the Piramal Foundation that launched the Piramal Fellowship, a Principal Leadership Development Program and a three year Master’s Training Program for headmasters from government run primary schools. The PFEL has shown success beyond expectation since its inception. Much of the foundation’s work is concentrated in Rajasthan but it has also made its presence in other parts of the country. PFEL works in 3400+ schools and has helped over 5,60,000 children. Ajay is also chairman of one of the largest NGOs in India, Pratham, which works towards providing quality education to underprivileged children. The NGO has spread its support to 23 states and union territories across India. According to the Hurun India Philanthropy List 2016, Ajay Piramal donated Rs.111 crore towards education, health care rural development and women empowerment last year alone.

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PHILANTHROPY G M RAO More than money, it is essential that we give people a good education and the skills to earn an honourable livelihood

Grandhi Mallikarjuna Rao is the founder and chairman of the GMR Group that was founded in 1974 and has made its presence in seven countries. It is known for building and operating world class infrastructure. Born in an upper middle class family whose main business was commodity trading, the family also had a small scale jewellery business that was started by his father Rajam. Not content with staying with the family business, GMR acquired a failing jute mill which proved lucrative and which he went on to use as collateral with the local banks to acquire other assets. With this he started the Vysya Bank in collaboration with ING; later choosing to dissolve his stake for Rs.340 crore. The bank sale gave him an entry into the powerful world of business where he catapulted the GMR Group into the country’s largest infrastructure asset developer. GM Rao’s philanthropic side was influenced in his formative years which led him to start the GMR Varalakshmi Foundation (GMRVF) that funds charitable activities in the areas of education, healthcare, livelihood support and community development. The foundation undertakes various educational initiatives with the communities it works with. It collaborates with the government to strengthen and provide quality education to pre-schools and school education. The foundation also provides scholarships and loans to meritorious students who don’t have the financial backing to pursue their higher education. They have provided more than 3000 students with scholarships for various courses and another 250 students were provided loans to take up professional courses. One-fourth of the loan is provided by them which is interest free and the rest is taken out from the bank. The foundation monitors the progress of the students by keeping in touch with the educational institutions. GMRVF has several vocational training centres across the country, which helps in skill development of youth from underprivileged backgrounds and who are school and college dropouts. These training centres are usually in partnership with industries that help create skilled manpower. The foundation trains over 4000 youth a year with an 80% settlement.

August 2017

Chairman and owner of 73% of Wipro Limited, business tycoon, investor and philanthropist, informally known as the czar of the IT industry and listed twice among the 100 Most Influential People by TIME magazine… More famously, he is the second richest man in India who gave away half of his wealth by signing The Giving Pledge. Premji made a $2.2 billion donation to the Azim Premji Foundation which focuses on education in India. Being the first Indian to sign The Giving Pledge, an initiative started by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, which encourages the world’s wealthiest to give up most of their wealth for philanthropic causes, Premji started the trend for the other billionaires in the country to emulate. The Azim Premji Foundation is a non-profit organisation that is widely set up in the country and is in close partnership with various state governments. It focuses mainly on improving the quality and equity of rural school education. The foundation works in 8 states and has more than 350,000 schools. Premji strongly believes that those who are privileged to have wealth should contribute significantly to try and create a better world for the millions who are far less privileged. He is the recipient of the Padma Bhushan and the Padma Vibhushan award and has been ranked 9th among India’s 50 most powerful people in India Today magazine. He has gone on record to say that being rich does not thrill him. Lending weight to his words is the fact that his contribution towards education more than doubled to a humungous Rs.27,514 crore in 2015.

AZIM PREMJI Philanthropy needs patience, tenacity and time

Children are like wet cement, whatever falls on them makes an impression. -Haim Ginott

SHIV NADAR India's connection with philanthropy is age-old and ingrained in our value systems

KIRAN MAZUMDAR SHAW Philanthropy changes somebody else’s life in a meaningful way

Born in Moolaipozhi village in Tamil Nadu, Shiv Nadar founded HCL in 1976 with an investment of Rs.1,87,000. Nadar was ranked #16 among the Top 50 most powerful people by India Today magazine. The Shiv Nadar Foundation was set up in 1994 through which he makes all his contributions. Nadar plays an active role in bettering the education scene in India. He is propelled by the belief that education is and will be the most powerful tool for individual and social change and that one must do all that they can to facilitate it. In 2009 he set up the VidyaGyan initiative that identifies 100,000 of the brightest students from the rural government primary schools across 75 districts in the state of Uttar Pradesh. The initiative set up two residential schools in Bulandshahar and Sitapur which provides 1900 students free education. The school provides computer, math and science labs and aims to create leaders among children in rural India. There are two other Shiv Nadar schools that have been set up in NCR which are non-profit and aim to deliver excellence in education for local children. His other contribution towards education has been towards setting up the Shiv Nadar University in 2011 where he invested a whopping $214 million towards building a 286 acre research-oriented university near the country’s capital. It has a residential campus with engineering, management, natural sciences and humanities being taught. He believes his work towards education will have an impact even after his lifetime and the benefits from it will be felt by several generations. The vision of his foundation - ‘Leadership for Change, through Transformational Education’, effectively reflects this. Shiv Nadar topped the Hurun India Philanthropy list 2016 with his Rs.630 crore donation towards education.

“Philanthropy has to be sustainable, and that’s why I will make a big distinction between charity and philanthropy,” avers the chairman and managing director of biotechnology company, Biocon. “Charity has generally a sort of temporary effect and is about giving fish to a hungry man rather than teaching a person how to fish. Philanthropy changes somebody else’s life in a meaningful way.” Preferring the term ‘Compassionate capitalist’ over ‘Philanthropy’, Shaw started the Biocon Foundation in 2004, which focused on areas of healthcare, education and infrastructure. She is among the 17 billionaires to sign the Giving Pledge, a giving philanthropic group. She is the only self-made Indian woman to appear on the billionaires list compiled by the Chinese research firm Hurun Global. The foundation’s efforts have been towards improving quality of education for children in rural areas. They believe in providing ‘right to education’ through innovative teaching and to offering access to experiential learning in basic math, computers and language. The foundation also supports organizations that are involved in path-breaking projects. The Biocon Academy imparts advanced training to young graduates to gain necessary skill and employment in the bio-pharma sector. All selected candidates are provided 75% of the total fee as scholarship. The foundation also creates a platform to promote art and culture and encourages various artists to share their knowledge with marginalized communities through various initiatives. It encourages young girls with life coaching and employment opportunities by providing vocational skill and encouraging gender equality. Biocon Foundation has adopted and rebuilt a township in North Karnataka in which they have built a school apart from building 400 houses, providing clean drinking water, health care and a community hall. The Hurun Philanthropy List cites Kiran Mazumdar Shaw as having donated Rs.45 crore towards health care, social development and education in 2016.

August 2017

PHILANTHROPY NITA AND MUKESH AMBANI Education is empowerment to make choices

Nita Ambani sums up education thus - “Education is not a tool for development - individual, community and the nation. It is the foundation for our future. It is empowerment to make choices and emboldens the youth to chase their dreams.” Wife of chairman, managing director and largest shareholder of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) Mukesh Ambani, the richest Indian on earth, she is his strongest supporter. This power couple has gone on to do various philanthropy work through their initiative Reliance Foundation founded in 2010. This is one of the largest private foundations in India. The foundation’s educational programs provide quality education through a network of schools, offering Dhirubhai Ambani Scholarships to meritorious students and supports like-minded organisations. Through their Education For All (EFA) initiative they have impacted the lives of 100,000 children positively in the last few years with the help of several other NGOs. Imparting life skills to the differently abled, promoting girl child education and working with underprivileged children are some of the work that is done by EFA. Under the initiative from its inception, every year 18,000 children from various NGOs across Maharashtra are taken to watch an IPL match that provides them with a lifetime experience where the children get to cheer for their favourite team. They also organise a day of fun-filled activities and host a Christmas party at the famous toy store Hamley’s where the children get to meet Santa and are given presents so they can ring in the New Year with joy, hope and excitement, which is the very spirit of the season. The programme supports twelve partner NGOs: Aarambh, Akanksha, Aseema, Deepalya, Meljol, Milaan, Mumbai Mobile Crèches, One Billion Literates Foundation, Sakhi, Slum Soccer, Ummeed, and Yuwa. The Dhirubhai Ambani Scholarship Program has awarded more than 11,000 meritorious students - of which 20% of whom are specially-abled - with scholarships, which motivates them to build confidence and excel in their lives. Reliance Foundation and its associate institutions annually provide access to quality education for more than 15,000 children through a network of 14 schools. According to the Hurun India Philanthropy List 2016 a donation of Rs.303 crore was made by the Reliance Foundation towards causes such as education, rural development, sports, health and Swach Bharat.

August 2017

Former CEO of HCL, author of the highly acclaimed management book ‘Employees First, Customers Second: Turning Conventional Management Upside Down’, and founder of Sampark Foundation, Vineet Nayar was born and spent most of his childhood in Pantnagar, a small town in the foothills of the Himalayas. Armed with an MBA from XLRI, he joined HCL in 1985 and, to this day, serves as a senior advisor to the company. He co-founded the New Delhi-based Sampark Foundation in 2005 with his wife Anupama Nayar with its central idea being ‘Innovation Led Large Scale Social Change’ and has transformed learning across 76,000 schools across India, helping over 7 million children. The foundation rolls out kid-friendly kits that sparks children’s interest in learning math and covers 23 of the basic concepts of the subject. The foundation provides training to 100,000 teachers to use these aids. They boast $100 million in funding which is completely sponsored by the Nayars themselves and represents more than half of their wealth. Nayar’s vision is to increase the understanding of the subjects of math and English skills in primary schools by making the subject more exciting by engaging the children to learn through using toys, folklore, stories, games, audio lessons, songs and hands-on activities. Sampark released an audio device with an audio mascot called Sampark Didi to help teach English. The device needs to be charged only once every 15 days; this was done keeping in mind the frequent power cuts in rural areas. The foundation concentrates on what Nayar calls ‘Frugal innovation’. It costs $1 per child per year totalling to $15 million for the duration of the project. So there are no fancy laptops or iPads. It aims to help at least 80% of the kids learn 500 new words and 100 sentences and also be able to do basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Quitting the corporate world, Shiv Nadar defines his purpose as bringing smiles to millions of children.

VINEET NAYAR The first step of any communication is honest and consistent intentions

The purpose of education is to replace an empty mind with an open one. -Malcolm S. Forbes

KRIS GOPALAKRISHNAN The best way to measure innovation is through patents

RONNIE SCREWVALA Failure can be a stronger motivator than success

Best known as the co-founder of the Information Technology giant Infosys, Senapathy Kris Gopalakrishnan is a businessman who has given jobs to thousands of people in India, but that’s not all. He believes that research is the key to building a good economy and he hopes that quality of research in India will improve and more people will join research. Last year, he funded a stem cell-centred multidisciplinary programme on mental diseases and blood disorders, by providing Rs.6 crore. Overall, he and his wife have donated Rs.313 crore to philanthropic causes last year. Along with his wife Sudha Gopalakrishnan, he set up the Pratiksha Trust to fund his philanthropic interests. In 2014, the trust announced a grant of Rs.225 crore for the Centre for Brain Research (CBR), to be set up inside the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) campus in Bengaluru. He subsequently donated Rs.30 crore to IIT Madras to set up three chairs in computational brain research. He channelled Rs.11 crore to a partnership between the Centre for Brain Research and Carnegie Melon University. Gopalakrishnan believes that there is a strong relationship between computing and the human brain and hence the support to that area of research. He wants to act as a catalyst between different groups that are involved in education, research, computing and entrepreneurship. Chief mentor for Startup Village, a not-for-profit business incubator based in Kochi, Kerala, the organisation supports mainly student startups and aims to launch 1,000 technology startups by 2022. In 2014, Gopalakrishnan co-founded Axilor Ventures, a venture capital platform for young entrepreneurs. He was elected president of India's apex industry chamber Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) for 2013-14, and served as one of the co-chairs of the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2014. For his work, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2011.

Rohinton Soli “Ronnie” Screwvala is best known as the founder of UTV, one of the largest media and entertainment entities in India. He founded the company in 1990 and took it to great heights. In 2014, he exited the company to focus on aiding the fast-growing entrepreneurial ecosystem in India and to pursue his philanthropic interests. He donated Rs.160 crore for rural development last year, according to Hurun philanthropy list, 2016. He founded Unilazer ventures to support new entrepreneurs in pursuing their dreams. He also co-founded UpGrad, an online education company. Upgrad aims to provide opportunities for individuals to upgrade their professional journey by taking online courses in their area of expertise. Their programmes provide professional and personalised support by collaborating with the best in class faculty and industry professionals. Upgrad merges the latest technology and pedagogy to create an immersive learning experience that can be accessed anytime, anywhere. In his own words, “Our goal is to significantly leverage technology to transform the way education is delivered in the digital age. We have a world class team that is committed to provide the most engaging online learning experience to students.” Screwvala also laid the foundation of Society to Heal Aid Restore Educate (SHARE) for rural development in Maharashtra. SHARE was renamed Swades Foundation in 2013 and they have reached out to 2,000 villages (6 blocks of Raigad dist., Maharashtra: Mahad, Mangaon, Mhsala, Poladpur, Shrivardhan and Tala) impacting over 4,71,000 people. Swades Foundation has been working towards improving lives in rural Maharashtra by arranging drinking water through rainwater harvesting projects. They provide medical help, build sanitation blocks and aid local educational institutions by introducing computer classes and additional English classes. In 2014, Screwvala was awarded the GQ Philanthropist of the Year for his work with Swades Foundation.

August 2017

PHILANTHROPY ADI GODREJ Doing things right is more important than just doing the right thing

Adi Burjorji Godrej is the head of the Godrej family and Chairman of the Godrej group. He is the chairman of the Indian School of Business since April 2011 and was president of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) for the year 2012-13. He has been a member of the Dean's Advisory Council of the MIT Sloan School of Management and Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies. Philanthropic activities of Godrej are many with deep focus on education, environment and humanitarian causes. Approximately 23 per cent of the promoter holding in the Godrej group is held in trusts that invest in environment, health and education. The Godrej group is a major supporter of the Wildlife Fund in India. They have donated Rs.75 crore to support their philanthropic causes last year. Godrej Udayachal schools have been offering quality education and care for children since 1955. Also, Godrej has strongly supported Teach for India, an arm of Teach for America, which focuses on bringing together graduates and volunteers to work with low income schools. This is with the aim of improving the quality of education imparted in these schools. Teach for India was started in 2008 and reaches out to almost 38,000 students. Godrej Memorial hospital along with an American NGO called Smile Train conducts programmes to treat children from low income families who are born with a cleft lip. For all these activities, Adi Godrej was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2012.

August 2017

This sentiment expressed by Naveen Jindal, son of Savitri Jindal drives the Jindal family’s philanthropic efforts. Savitri Devi Jindal is the Chairperson Emeritus, Jindal Steel & Power Limited. She had to step up to the chairman's role post her husband O P Jindal’s untimely death in 2005. Hailing from Assam, she married Om Prakash Jindal who was the founder of Jindal group, a steel and power conglomerate, in 1970. Today, she is the richest woman in India and she strives to continue her husband’s philanthropic endeavours. The O.P. Jindal Charitable Trust primarily supports educational and humanitarian causes and has donated Rs.53 crore to the cause. Their initiative for education includes opening O.P. Jindal schools in Raigarh, Tamnar, Taraimal, Angul, Barbil, Patratu, and Hisar. Vidya Devi Jindal School is a girls’ residential school in Hisar, Haryana which aims to promote education for girls. O.P. Jindal Global University is a non-profit global university established by the Haryana Private Universities. The vision of JGU is to promote all-global courses, programmes, curriculum, research, collaborations, and interaction through a global faculty. They have sponsored many scholarships including the O.P. Jindal Outstanding Merit Scholarship, Naveen Jindal Young Global Scholarship, Shallu Jindal Outstanding Women Scholarship, Savitri Jindal Studentships/ Graduate Assistantships among others to encourage education. They have also set up a Community College of Technology and Skills in Raigarh, Angul, Patratu and Godda. Additionally, there are vocational training and rehabilitation centres set up in Vijaynagar and Raigarh.

SAVITRI JINDAL A healthy India lies in the healthy body and mind of its citizens

The great aim of education is not knowledge but action. -Herbert Spencer

ASHISH DHAWAN The highest aspiration was to serve the country and serve the world

RAKESH JHUNJHUNWALA Ashish Dhawan spent 20 years in the investment management business and ran one of Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leading private equity funds, ChrysCapital. In 2012, he founded the Central Square Foundation (CSF). CSF works with a mission to provide quality school education to all children in India that will help them to be productive and responsible citizens. They believe that a quality Early Childhood Education (ECE) programme must focus holistically on domains of child development, and must design its curriculum and pedagogy accordingly. CSF hopes to develop tools to assess the development of age-appropriate skills in children and measure the effectiveness of early childhood programmes, as well as support effective models of ECE teaching. CSF aims to collate best practices in policy and evidence from successful education programmes across the country and international contexts to influence mainstream education in India. They have partnered with some state governments and municipal corporations to create five-year visions that set measurable outcome-oriented goals for the education system and a transformation road map for reaching the goals. They, along with their grant partners, are working to find impactful and innovative education programmes that can be implemented by the government. Dhawan is also on the board a number of non-profit organisations like Akanksha Foundation, 3.2.1 Education Foundation, Teach For India, Centre for Civil Society, Janaagraha, India School Leadership Institute and Bharti Foundation, primarily all of which support education.

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it Rakesh Jhunjhunwala is a chartered accountant and a billionaire investor and trader. His prime philanthropic focus is nutrition and education. Jhunjhunwala is also monitoring and influencing government spending on social welfare and water management. Last year, he announced his decision to give away Rs.5000 crore or 25 percent of his total wealth, whichever is lower, to philanthropy when he turns 60 on July 5, 2020. He is inspired by his father who believed that more important than what he earned is how much he gave away for good causes. Jhunjhunwala supports the Agastya International Foundation, an education trust whose mission is to spark curiosity and nurture creativity in economically backward children and teachers. Agastya has a Creativity Lab in Andhra Pradesh which has science and art centres including an astronomy centre and planetarium, a centre for creative teaching, an innovation hub, a science model-making centre and open-air ecology lab. Almost 500 children come to the campus every day to learn and they also train teachers from three states.

August 2017

PHILANTHROPY PALLONJI MISTRY When you look at good governance, you also need to look at how you approach the subject

Realty major Sobha Developers’ Chairman Emeritus P N C Menon had pledged half his estimated $435 million wealth to charity in 2013. The approximate Rs.2445 crore amount is channelled by the Sri Kurumba Educational & Charitable Trust he had founded in 1994 – a year before he founded Sobha Developers – into many philanthropic activities such as Graamasobha, Sobha Academy, Sobha Health Care, Sobha Hermitage and the Social Wedding Programme. These Keralacentric programmes are aimed at empowering the rural poor. Four villages in Palakkad district have been adopted, with the trust helping families with very low monthly income. Education is provided to children from 2,500 poor families. Menon, who came from humble beginnings and had migrated to Oman in 1976 where he started an interior decorating business with a partner before going on to set up Sobha Developers in Bangalore in 1995, is of the belief that giving back to society is a must. Even as he focuses on expanding his Sobha Group's Middle East operations from Dubai, philanthropy remains of vital importance. “Once you make all of the money I don't think you should keep all of it for your family. A large portion of it should go to society. I have decided that 50% of mine should go to society,” he has been quoted as saying. A believer in the principle of money becoming redundant in one’s personal life beyond a certain point, PNC and wife Sobha are part of The Giving Pledge list, the philanthropic initiative started by Warren Buffett, former Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and wife Melinda.

P N C MENON The act of giving creates a degree of happiness that is immeasurable Pallonji Shapoorji Mistry is a construction tycoon and chairman of Shapoorji Pallonji Group. One of India's most successful and powerful businessmen, he controls a construction empire that operates across India, West Asia and Africa. The group works through the Shapoorji Pallonji Foundation to support environmental, healthcare and educational causes. In 2012, the group revealed plans to invest in a deep-sea port, an IT park, hydroelectricity and construction of roads and night shelters for the poor in West Bengal. They spent Rs.68 crore on social development causes last year. The foundation has helped clean a 300-year-old Nayalanka pond in Barasat, developed an awareness programme against alcoholism, provided free eye testing camps and blood donation camps for construction workers and helped underprivileged children. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in January 2016 by the Government of India for his contributions in the field of trade and industry.

August 2017

Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all. - Aristotle

KUMAR MANGALAM BIRLA There are two roadblocks in the way of transforming India into an economic giant and one of them is education

KUSHAL PAL SINGH I was hungry. And the best things in life are done when you are hungry for more…

Spearheading the Aditya Birla Group, 49-year-old Kumar Mangalam Birla, who is Chancellor of Birla Institute of Technology and Science, has donated no less than Rs.91 crore just over the past two years. A firm believer in the ideology that privatising education at the primary and secondary level would solve myriad problems, K M Birla is a fourth-generation member of a family that has supported education since the early 1900s. His mother Rajashree Birla recounts how, influenced by renowned educationist Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, their family supported educational charities in Kolkata and in Mumbai teaming up with Jamnalal Bajaj. In 1918, their family established the first high school in Pilani. “What started as a small school in Pilani, evolved into a unique university under the tutelage of G.D. Birla. Today BITS Pilani is an unparalleled temple of learning, a tribute to his vision of true education. To spark the desire for learning, our elders also opened a Sanskrit library in Benares and a library in Kolkata.” If Rajashree’s grandfather-in-law G D Birla, a firm believer in the power of education, started off donating Rs.2 lakh for the Harijans followed by Rs.70,000 for the Aligarh Muslim University, and Rs.25 lakh to establish the Birla Vishwakarma Mahavidyalaya College in Baroda, her husband Aditya Birla, backed by the government, set up Mangal Mandir, later christened the Aditya Birla Centre for the Welfare of Children, which has educated and rehabilitated more than 3,000 destitute boys since 1979. The Birla group of educational institutions includes Birla Planetariums, Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, Birla Institute of Management Technology (BIMTECH), Greater Noida, Birla Global University Bhubaneswar, Odisha, Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, M. P. Birla Foundation Higher Secondary School, Technological Institute of Textile & Sciences, Bhiwani, M. P. Birla Institute of Fundamental Research, BK Birla Group institutions, and Aditya Birla Group Institutions.

Chairman of Delhi Land and Finance (DLF) with an estimated net worth of at least $4.9 billion, K P Singh is patron of the DLF Foundation, established in 2008 as the philanthropic arm of DLF Limited in order to provide structure and focus to the company’s social responsibility initiatives. The foundation works to empower communities and create opportunities for the underprivileged in the realms of education, training and health. A steady promoter of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives, DLF Foundation’s education programs sees financial support offered to the underprivileged to ensure quality education in private schools enrolled by DLF Foundation. It organizes workshops and provides scholarships, awards and recognition to scholars. The foundation also organises scholarship programs integrated with existing Rural Learning Excellence Centres in government primary schools. These centres train students in 22 government schools in the rural areas of Gurgaon to improve their academic education in advanced English, Mathematics and Hindi, build life-skills and develop their overall personalities. The four Swapan Sarthak and Slum Schools conducted by DLF over major villages of Gurgaon cater to the slum dwellers' children, providing them free education. DLF bears all educational expenses including fees, uniforms, books and mid-day meals of these students. Associated with various educational and charitable trusts such as the Indian School of Business, Prince's Charities and Dr Zakir Hussain Memorial College, the real estate magnate, who has been known for being India’s largest real estate developer, has gone on record to say, “The concept of philanthropy is really good, but for that people in our country first need to create wealth themselves.” And that he indeed has. Once dubbed the country’s richest property baron, known best for transforming Gurgaon into a world renowned hub within a decade, K P Singh has been a regular on philanthropy lists for his initiatives in adoption of villages and skill training of youth.

August 2017

PHILANTHROPY LAXMI MITTAL With its demographic of younger generation, I am very confident of India's future in the world space

Speaking of the revival in Indian philanthropy, Bharti Airtel’s Sunil Mittal is enthused as much by the widening of the donor base as the size of contributions, as “millions participate—in their own little or big way—to change lives of their unfortunate brethren not just in the country but across the world.” Contributing no less than Rs.31 crore in the last two years alone, Bharti Airtel’s Sunil Mittal, with a net worth of Rs.50,300 crore, has been working towards educating India through the Bharti Foundation, set up in 2000. Spurred by the belief that quality education is the most powerful tool for socio-economic transformation of a country as it not only eradicates poverty but also ensures equity among people, the foundation works to ensure access to quality education for all, in particular for underprivileged children from disadvantaged and marginalized communities. The philanthropic arm of Bharti Enterprises, the foundation implements and supports quality education programs across primary, elementary, senior secondary, and higher education levels. In keeping with its mission to help the country’s underprivileged children and young people realise their potential, all educational programs initiated by Bharti Foundation entail close partnerships with the government, policy makers, corporations, local communities and the general public. Aimed at holistic development of children, making them employable citizens with a deep sense of commitment to society, the intent is to develop a scalable and sustainable education model that can be replicated on a large scale by the government, educational institutions and like-minded organizations. It has established schools in villages across India and offers free quality education with free books, uniform and mid-day meals to poor children. The Satya Bharti School Program, which is the foundation's flagship program, runs 254 schools in six states serving over 43,000 rural children, free of cost. Their other educational initiatives include the Satya Bharti School, and Quality Support and Learning Centre Programs, currently reach out to over 1,24,000 underprivileged children in 11 states.

SUNIL MITTAL With an estimated net worth of at least $16.1 billion, UKbased ArcelorMittal Chairman, Laxmi Niwas Mittal reportedly controls 10% of total world steel production. The size of the world’s largest steelmaker, owing to a series of global acquisitions and mergers, is said to be three times that of its nearest competitors. Ranked second on the list of world’s richest Indians, Laxmi Mittal, who famously once said – “I am still very young…I will work for a couple of years more and then I would think about it,” when asked about his plans for philanthropy, has a lifetime giving figure that exceeds $32 million. Co-founder of the Lakshmi and Usha Mittal Foundation, he donates primarily to health and educational causes. The foundation supports educational, medical and sports causes, providing support to many different community projects around the world in the countries in which it operates. In 2009, the Foundation, along with Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, founded the Usha Lakshmi Mittal Institute of Management in New Delhi. The foundation and the government of Rajasthan in India partnered in 2002 to establish the LNM Institute of Information Technology (LNMIIT) in Jaipur, India, as an autonomous non-profit organisation. The institute offers undergraduate and post graduate programs in computer engineering, mathematics, and information technology. SNDT Women’s University renamed the Institute of Technology for Women (ITW) as the Usha Mittal Institute of Technology (UMIT) after receiving a generous donation from the Lakshmi and Usha Mittal Foundation.

August 2017

I clearly see a massive movement emerging…

I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better. -Maya Angelou

ANIL AGARWAL It is important to give back what we earn for the greater good of society

ROHINI AND NANDAN NILEKANI What I want is to give millions more the opportunities I had

In 2014, Vedanta group chairman Anil Agarwal hit the headlines when he pledged to give away 75 per cent of his wealth of $3.5 billion (about Rs.21,000 crore), gained by economic benefit, to charity. Committed to powering community programmes that work towards eradication of poverty, child welfare and women empowerment, he evinced keenness on also creating a world-class, not-for-profit university in India offering the best-in-class education in liberal arts and humanities. His Rs.16,200-crore donation pledge, revealed the Patnaborn Agarwal, who had started his journey as a scrap dealer in his teens and went on to become one of India’s leading industrialists, with interests in metals (Sesa Sterlite) and oil and gas (Cairn India), was inspired by his meeting with Microsoft’s Bill Gates. Donating no less than Rs.139 crore in the past two years alone, the founder and chairman of Vedanta Resources had ranked second on the Hurun India Philanthropy list 2014 for his personal donation of Rs.1796 crore. Eradication of poverty and creation of jobs remains uppermost in the mind of Agarwal, who, besides Bill Gates, counts Andrew Carnegie and David Rockefeller who built public works with their fortunes, as his main inspiration.

Nandan and Rohini Nilekani took the second spot on the Hurun Philanthropy list 2015 with a contribution of a whopping Rs.2,404 crore. “Rohini and I have prioritised giving back,” says Nandan; over the years, the couple has poured wealth into funding social causes that usual investors keep their distance from. Entrepreneur, bureaucrat and politician Nandan had left Infosys to join Unique Identification Authority of India as chairman, while Rohini is a full-time philanthropist who has given away $40 million over the years. Besides developing entrepreneurship ecosystem, the couple is involved in education and social and rural development. Rohini Nilenkani is the chairperson and founder of Arghyam, which grants funds to implement and manage ground water and sanitations projects in India, and has also been involved with the NGO Pratham, which works at improving educational standards in underprivileged settings in 100,000 villages and communities. In education, Infosys co-founder Nandan has donated Rs.480 crore of his wealth of Rs.7,700 crore to the National Council of Applied Economic Research, an economic think-tank. Their latest project, EkStep, to which they have made an initial personal commitment of Rs.67 crore, makes use of mobile gaming technology to teach India’s poor, school-age children math and language skills. The goal is to use smartphones, tablets and apps to improve literacy and numeracy among 200 million children, who are first generation schoolers living in a poor-resource environment and whose parents are not educated. The digital platform is designed to allow large-scale crowd-sourced collaboration, curation and assembly of relevant content in multiple languages. In Karnataka, nearly 10,000 government schools are using the EkStep platform to enhance learning levels of children, while 18 states in all are using EkStep through various NGOs. A digital spine which allows others to build solutions, EkStep is a free public open infrastructure for education. Coming from the man who successfully steered the implementation of the UID card project across the country, it appears destined to succeed.

August 2017

JULY 2017

“Our focus has shifted from universalization of access to ensuring quality learning”

Parvathy Jayakrishnan writeback@scoonews.com

n an exclusive interview Anil Swarup, Secretary, Department of School Education and Literacy, MHRD, Government of India, shares his plan of action for education in India. The Indian education system is poised for a significant transformation and Swarup strongly believes that the solutions to our education problems are available within our homeland itself. Hopeful of bringing in reforms that will trigger change, he feels that we need to take examples of systems that work from within our own country and scale them through public-private partnership. As a start, the Centre plans to launch a programme where the attendance of

teachers will be tracked by a GPS device. Teacher absenteeism is 25 per cent on an average in government schools and it is one of the most important reasons for poor learning outcomes. The device will also monitor parameters like availability of drinking water, toilets and laboratories. He emphasises that the government has no intention of making NCERT books compulsory, rather it is only a suggestion that the books be made available in schools so that children are not forced to buy their expensive counterparts. Although, 64 per cent voted “No” on Twitter to his question of “Should CBSE affiliated schools source reasonably priced NCERT books?” It is indeed surprising that people want to deny a “choice” given to them. He takes pride in the fact that government schools are doing better than private schools as revealed by the CBSE

August 2017

results and he hopes to introduce schemes that will exponentially improve the quality of education across the country. Not long ago, the former Coal Secretary had tweeted “Underground mining and over ground mafia in coal sector were easier to handle. It is a tougher battle on with underground mafia in Education Sector”. It is a battle he is not shying away from. He is doing his best to make education affordable and accessible to all. Enthusiastic about the task at hand, he shares the government's plans for a large scale National Achievement Survey and the importance of assessing class-wise learning outcomes to improve the quality of education in India. The survey is the largest ever conducted and it hopes to assess 30 lakh children. Excerpts from the interview with ScooNews…

Technology will be the real game-changer to enable better student learning and teacher training, says Anil Swarup, Secretary, School Education & Literacy Are you a proponent of digital learning? If yes, where do we start in making learning in schools digital and how do we go about implementing it? We believe that technology can be a real game-changer to enable better student learning, teacher training and ensuring real-time monitoring of the schools. To implement this at scale, we are in the process of improving digital infrastructure, software and quality of content at all levels. We are providing tablets to every stand-alone school for which a pilot is being conducted in select districts. The tablet will contain applications to track progress of children on learning outcomes and will have training material for teachers. We have developed curriculum to better integrate ICT in teaching-learning and teacher training processes, which many states are already using. Further, we have launched resources like National Open Educational Resources (NROER), epathshala and MOOCs on various technology platforms (web portals, mobile apps etc.) to ensure digital learning in schools. Technology will also be used for streamlining the data collection exercise at school-level so that teachers are not overburdened with paperwork. The tablet will be used for tasks like checking attendance, uploading data for Mid-Day Meal and entering U-DISE data. The National Achievement Survey is scheduled in September-October. How is such a large scale survey going to be carried out and what do you aim to find out from the survey this time? National Achievement Survey (NAS) will be conducted across all the districts of the country and will assess approximately 30 lakh children. To ensure its effective roll-out, NCERT is providing detailed guidelines and will train states/ UTs on academic and technical aspects of the survey. A web-based technology platform will be used for easier entry and analysis of data. We are monitoring and tracking each step and have established a dedicated Project Monitoring Unit (PMU) to ensure coordination and support. Unlike previous surveys, NAS is based on the Learning Outcomes and will

provide district-specific reports as against state-specific reports which were released earlier. The results will be available in the same academic year so that states/ districts can create intervention plans to bridge the gaps in learning levels. Government schools fare better than private schools in the CBSE results. Why do you think this is so and what do you think private schools need to do to better their results? The data from CBSE does reveal that government schools, especially those run by the Central Government (Kendriya Vidyalaya and Navodaya Vidyalaya), perform better than private schools. Private schools will have to look into the causes thereof. You do not support the method of giving away free marks to students in the name of “moderation”? Could you please explain your stand? By giving “free” marks the true worth of the child does not get reflected. Many private schools allege that CBSE’s move in making NCERT books mandatory in all affiliated schools will bring down the standard of education. What are your thoughts on this? There is no move to make NCERT books mandatory for CBSE schools. Effort is being made to ensure that students are not compelled to buy expensive books for want of reasonably priced NCERT books. The mid-day meal scheme has proven successful in keeping children in schools, especially in backward districts of the country. Do you plan to introduce any more such schemes to promote primary education? As you rightly mentioned, Mid-Day Meal (MDM) has had positive impact on improvement of education and health indicators of children, especially of those belonging to poor and disadvantaged sections. We are in the process of conducting independent evaluation of MDM to further strengthen its components and make it more effective. Despite an enrolment rate of 96 percent in primary schools, the ASER report of 2016 reveals that only 42.5 percent of Class 3 students can read Class 1 level text. How do we bridge the gap? Poor learning levels are a major chal-

lenge for school education and our focus has also now shifted from universalization of access to ensuring quality learning. We have prepared class-wise learning outcomes (Class 1-8; languages, Mathematics, Environmental Science, Science and Social Science) which will indicate the expected levels of learning that children should achieve. These learning outcomes are now being shared with teachers and parents. We have also incorporated these learning outcomes in the Central Rules to the RTE Act, 2009 and have asked the states to do the same in their RTE rules. We are focusing on foundational literacy and numeracy skills in Class 1 and 2 with programmes such as ‘Padhe Bharat Badhe Bharat’. Another focus area is Math and Science for Class 6-8 where, under Rashtriya Avishkar Abhiyan, we are conducting mentoring sessions, organising math and science clubs and providing for professional development of teachers. Can the government put a solid system in place to solve teachers’ (SSA) woes of pending salaries? Paying salaries to teachers on time is the responsibility of the state governments. Under the 14th Finance Commission, states have received substantial additional funding. So they should have no problem in paying the teachers. What, according to you, is the biggest hurdle we face in achieving 100 per cent literacy in our country? We have launched Saakshar Bharat programme with a target of certifying 7 crore illiterates as literates by 2017. This is focused on districts where female literacy was below 50 per cent. This scheme is being implemented in the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) mode and is run through Preraks who lead community mobilisation and voluntary teachers who teach at the village level. The biggest hurdles we face are lack of proper infrastructure to run Adult Education Centres, meagre honorarium to community mobilisers and none to voluntary teachers, and lack of political will in some of the Panchayati Raj Institutions.

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JUNE 2017

Why Teachers in India Would Love to Work in Luxembourg!

Despite the recommendations of the 7th pay commission, teacher salaries in India continue to lag way behind most other countries’, finds Nichola Pais. Nichola Pais editor@scoonews.com

ow much do you make?’ This insulting, belittling question is addressed by American slam poet, humorist, teacher, and voiceover artist Taylor Mali in his poem, What Teachers Make. “You want to know what I make? I make kids wonder. I make them question. I make them criticize. I make them apologize and mean it. I make them write. I make them read, read, read… I make them understand that if you have the brains, then follow your heart...and if someone ever tries to judge you by what you make, you pay them no attention!” It ends with the slam - "You want to know what I make? I make a difference. And you? What do you make?”

If we are strictly speaking money here, however, your average professional in almost every other industry does make much more than the lowly teacher. The irony is despite studies confirming repeatedly that students who have high quality teachers make significant and lasting achievement gains, dedicated teachers in many countries across the world remain poorly paid. In India, while government school teachers are paid in the range of Rs.20,000 to Rs.40,000 (310 USD to 620 USD) a month depending on their level of qualification and experience, the situation can get dismal in the private schools sector, which employs nearly 43% of school teachers in India. The 7th Pay Commission launched in September 2015 ensured all teachers in

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primary schools, secondary and higher secondary schools, colleges and universities receive a hike of 16% in net salary. The projected salary of trained graduate school teachers would become around Rs.29,900 – Rs.1,04,400 (basic) along with grade pay of Rs.13,800. This would bring the net salary of a teacher to Rs.51,420 (788 USD). While that is news to cheer about, according to the investigations of a national newspaper, many private school teachers in different states were found to be working for salaries as low as a distressing Rs.2,000 (31 USD) per month. Here again corruption is rife, with teachers often made to sign against an official salary and return part of the payment in cash to unscrupulous management.

Teacher Salary in India (Based on Experience) Job Category

Experience

Average Annual Salary

Primary School Teacher

Less than a year

INR 59,516 – INR 232,699

1-4 years

INR 70,181 – INR 279,774

5-9 years

INR 82,851 – INR 297,988

10-19 years

INR 78,292 – INR 360,000

20 years and more

INR 180,000 – INR 268,584

Less than a year

INR 66,000 – INR 368,671

1-4 years

INR 86,121 – INR 384,303

5-9 years

INR 77,167 – INR 398,656

10-19 years

INR 120,000 – INR 494,484

20 years and more

INR 174,445 – INR 760,256

High School Teacher

Salaries of Teacher in India (based on Degrees or Certification) Job Category

Degree Or Certification

Average Annual Salary

Primary School Teacher

Bachelor’s degree

INR 69,996 – INR 289,617

Bilingual education

INR 108,000 – INR 192,000

Teacher Certification

INR 71,353 – INR 300,607

Middle Teacher Certification

INR 103,846 – INR 174,000

Elementary Teacher Certification (Grade 1-5)

INR 72,877 – INR 301,362

Secondary Teacher Certification (Grade 9-12)

INR 78,000- INR 232,258

Master of Arts, Economics

INR 117,916 – INR 308,368

Bachelor of Education, Bed

INR 86,555 – INR 1,616,179

Master of Science, Math

INR 98,959 – INR 317,418

Bachelor’s Degree

INR 94,020 – INR 596,993

Bachelor of Education

INR 93,000 – INR 330,000

Master of Arts or MA, English

INR 60,820 – INR 363,650

Bilingual education

INR 68,008 – INR 930,797

Teacher Certification

INR 71,952 – INR 471,049

Middle Teacher Certification (Grade 5-9)

INR 93,653 – INR 294,408

Elementary Teacher Certification (Grade 1-5)

INR 48,656 – INR 295,898

Secondary Teacher Certification (Grade 9-12)

INR 93,483 – INR 473,976

MRT or Master Reading Teacher Certification

INR 73,533 – INR 447,399

High School Teacher

(Figures courtesy naukrihub.com)

August 2017

JUNE 2017 The figures pale shockingly compared to the salary of the average American teacher, who starts out earning approximately 37,000 USD and goes on to make $60,000 a year. Going by figures released by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), stark variance exists around the world in how much teachers earn and also how much their salaries increase with time. If a teacher in South Korea starts out making 22,000 USD which increases to 34,000 USD after 10 years of experience, teachers’ salaries in Germany begin at around 46,000 USD and max at 60,000 USD a year. Even Germany lags behind however when it comes to Luxembourg, one of the richest countries in the world, where teacher salaries begin at 79,920 USD, while more experienced teachers earn on average 138,920 USD. The next biggest earners are teachers in Denmark (starting 46,000 USD up to 53,400 USD) and the USA (starting at 43,000 USD up to 66,000 USD). France and Belgium come next with teachers earning 30,300 to 65,800 USD and 43,400 to 59,600 USD respectively. Teachers in Hungary earn an average of 10,600 USD a year and are considered ill-paid... For a teacher in India who earns Rs.40,000 a month which works out to approximately 7440 USD annually, the less said the better. A survey by TED-Ed reveals that in Canada, a middle school Special Education teacher with seven years’ experience has a take home salary of 3,120 USD, while a grade 6 homeroom teacher who with 8 years of experience earns around 2,750 USD per month. A newly qualified BEd degree-holding teacher in London has a take home of around 3,540 USD a month, while an English foreign language teacher with 33 years of experience in Athens earns just around 1,360 USD. A qualified secondary school teacher in Kildare, Ireland with five years of experience earns 3,140 USD, a teacher with 19 years of experience in Kagoshima, Japan averages 3,340 USD after tax, while an English teacher at the gymnasium in Kruonis, Lithuania earns just 870 USD after 36 years. A 7th grade English teacher starting out in Prilep, Macedonia earns around 133 USD net, while a computer teacher at a community school in Kathmandu, Nepal earns even less at 115 USD. A relatively good packet of 4,370 USD is

what a middle school math and science teacher with seven years of experience makes in Oslo, Norway; considerably more than what a 55year-old English teacher in Bucharest, Romania makes at around 492 USD. Johannesburg, South Africa treats its teachers better, offering a secondary math teacher with three years of teaching experience around 1,130 USD. Sweden fares even better; a teacher teaching math, science and technology to grades 4 to 6 in Norrkoping has a take home of around 3,030 USD. A 7th grade math teacher with two years of experience in Damascus, Syria earns 114 USD. The picture is definitely rosier in the US where an elementary music teacher of five years in Georgia, earns 2,100 USD net, while a high school special education teacher with five years’ experience in Minnesota takes home 2,800 USD after taxes. While the scenario is definitely brighter for teachers in the country’s international schools, who start off at Rs.45,000 to Rs.50,000 going up to Rs.1 lakh to Rs.2 lakh for co-ordinators or heads of department, the average salary of a high school teacher in India remains Rs.3,01,462 (approx.

August 2017

4650 USD) a year. The simmering resentment among the majority of teachers across the country is understandable. During his last address to students and teachers on the eve of Teachers’ Day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had pointed out that that while a mother gives birth to us, a teacher gives life to us, and a void remains in our life when there is no balance. He spoke of how a student represents his teacher, is the canvas painted by his teacher, as they make up the only pair that distributes knowledge. He also ventured to add that there is a great demand for good teachers in the world, and India, being a young country, should be able to produce good quality teachers for the world. Make in India, export to the world? Many would love the chance! As to the question regarding the need to find out why “the value of a teacher has lost its sheen and why students don’t want to be teachers when they grow up,” the answer would come back to what a teacher makes… Low salary combined with low respect for services delivered to society cannot make for a cocktail to raise a teacher’s spirits.

MAY 2017

THAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT There was a time when comic books were the easiest way of entertainment and publications made sure that they were full of fun and adventures to keep children hooked. However, with digitalisation came a period which was so bad for existence of comic books that more than 50 publications shut down.

August 2017

Dr Sanjay Parva editor@scoonews.com

nce upon a time there lived a generation which enjoyed reading those thin colorful books with illustrated graphics. That was the best thing a child could do during hot summer afternoons. Those books were their friends in long journeys, at home and an ally during study. The companionship was strong. Characters of these books illuminated something within and made sure every child lived the funny side of life, turned adventurous in his own way and forayed into a magical world that these books presented. This was the time when comic books were at their best. They were welcomed by parents and children alike. Not only were they presented as a treat but some brands also held higher opinion over others.

They took the children in the fantasy world of colorful characters which

were strong and wanted to save the world and gripped them with their exemplified graphics and exciting story line. It was the time when Indian super heroes were born and were read by children all over; a time that gave wings to every childâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s imagination, taking them not only around the planet earth but also to different galaxies. 1990â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s was the time when comic books were the easiest way of entertainment and publications made sure that they were full of fun and adventures to keep children hooked. However, with digitalisation came a period which was so bad for existence of comic books that more than 50 publications shut down. Videogames and later computers and mobiles took away the spell the comics had on children. There are few comics which are still published or are worth reading from the archives that will be talked about in this article.

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MAY 2017 The first name that clicks when comic books are mentioned is that of legendry cartoonist Pran. He made sure that children get all cuddling and fun experiences of life through colorful comic books and with Diamond Comics; he gave birth to an era where comics were treated like prized possessions. They were traded for latest or past issues, collected as souvenirs and cherished forever. They were the best entertainment a child could get while growing up. Let alone children, even grown-ups sought out the latest editions as soon as they were out. On one hand where there were characters like ‘Billoo’ and ‘Pinki’ who represented young boys and girls, at the same time there were characters like ‘Raman’, ‘Shrimati Jee’ and ‘Channi Chachi’ which represented the adults. The equation and the balance of every character suited the scenario. They fit in perfectly amongst developing India. Whether it was a middle class employee or a modern housewife or a naughty teenager, the comics ensured that nothing was beyond the child’s comprehension.Today while talking about comics it would be unfair if we leave Pran and his evergreen creations for the last. Let us relive some characters that were cherished by children while growing up during the golden era of comic books.

CHACHA CHAUDHARY:

“Chacha Chaudhary’s brain works faster than a computer.” Every child knew this legendary line by heart. Nobody can forget the elderly man ‘Chacha Chaudhary’ who with his wit was able to solve all the complications that were thrown at him. Such was his fame that later he was personified on television too. His companion ‘Sabu’ was every child’s dream as it was believed that he was a real resident of Jupiter and the most powerful man on planet earth. The children craved for their character to win over all other villains like ‘Raka’ and ‘Gabbar Singh’. The not so designer but lovable dog ‘Rocket’, his nagging wife ‘Binni Chachi’ and an old truck Dag-dag which was half machine and half human made sure that all the

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essence of a middle class family was present. The comic was even personified on small screen by actor Raghuveer Yadav.

Sabu’s strength could master even the most difficult situations in no time and that’s what made this duo the most loved. There was one such situation which came in front of Sabu when he was playing Cricket and a character ‘Datuk’ who although hated cricket called him for a match. He also added his condition of playing with his own ball.

The show has made five hundred episodes and used to run on ‘Sahara One’. It is the first Indian cartoon character which was brought on screen. Chacha Chaudhary’s wit and

While Sabu goes back home to collect stumps, a passerby reveals that his ball was made of stone and he just want to break his bat and want to have some fun. Meanwhile when Chacha Chaudhary finds Sabu taking only stumps from home and leaving the ball behind he asks Sabu the reason for doing so. After hearing Datuk wants to play with his ball, Chacha Chaudhary asks him to take a different bat which Sabu does. When Datuk bowls Sabu it was welcomed by a smacking shot and ball break hitting Datuk in return. It was then Chacha Chaudhary was shown speaking, “If he can bowl a stone ball we can also play with a steel bat.” Such incidence made him the master of wit and delivered a clean and refreshing entertainment which adorned every kid’s book shelves.

BILLOO:

Billoo was shown as a naughty school going teenager who is mischievous and who gets in trouble due to his pranks. He is a lovable character and along with his pet pup Moti he has few more members like Gabdu, Jozi, and Monu etc. His hairstyle is shown such that the hair covers his forehead and eyes all the time and nobody has seen them so far. A character of a clever teenager who loves to play cricket connected with almost every boy of that generation and thus gained popularity in no time. To add to the challenge we had Bajarangi a cunning wrestler and his side-kick Dhakkan who are constant trouble creators. Billoo and his gang detest them completely. Initially comic books had shown Billoo as a

August 2017

MAY 2017 kid however later his character developed as a teenager, in one of his comics it was shown that Jozi, his childhood friend becomes his girlfriend.

PINKI:

tyre in return. When the owner agreed, she ran back home and brings her toy car’s tyre saying innocently that her squirrel also bit only a little of the whole tyre. Her natural quaintness came because of her age. She for all the reason became one of the favored comic characters of the lot.

SHRIMATI JEE:

Sheila or Shrimati Jee as she was called in the title was a character dedicated to middle class Indian women and was first published in Sarita, which was a women oriented magazine. It soon got a massive female fan following as it mostly covered situations that a normal Indian women would go through, whether it is about price rise or problems with kids or issues with husband or that with kitty parties etc. Shrimati Jee lived it. She was mostly shown with her husband Kishore. The issues talked in the comic were very common and funny. In one such episode, Kishore was shown taking leave from work and glued in front of the TV to watch some cricket match (a very common household scenario). From the kitchen Shiela aka Shrimati Jee, calls him for breakfast, he requests her to serve him his breakfast there only as he did not want to move away from TV.

Pinki is shown as a kid and is created by Cartoonist Pran Kumar Sharma. She is shown as a five year old kid and is extremely naughty. So much so that entire neighborhood is scared of her mischievous nature. She is always shown with her pet squirrel kut-kut who is equally naughty and completes the duo with similar energy. Constant characters of her comic books were her friends Bhiku and Champu and her neighbor Jhaptji who is shown as the most common victim of Pinki’s mischief. Every episode where Pinki is shown to help Jhaptji ends up with him being in trouble and lots of laughter. Pinki is otherwise a lovable kid with a pure heart. In one such episode, it was shown that her pet kut-kut chewed away someone’s car’s tyre. The owner angrily tells her that she will have to compensate. Our beloved Pinki cutely asks him if she could give him another

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She willingly does it. Then after a while she reminds him that he needs to get a haircut. To this, he makes a phone call to the barber and calls him home to get a haircut in front of TV. Irritated, she tells him to take a bath after getting the haircut to which he sighs and wishes for the water to come to him so he needn’t leave his match. Angry as a bull she is shown bringing a water hosepipe in the drawing room and drenching him saying, “Here it is.” Totally hilarious, such situations happen to most women and we all have lived it someday or the other. Many such small instances were covered in the cartoon which made it a regular feature in Manorama, another women magazine. Apart from Diamond Comics, Raj Comics were another famous name which kept the torch burning even during tough times. Characters crafted by this group were more of action figures and superheroes. Most of them fought criminals and goons to save the earth from destruction. Some comics that were immensely

successful were:

RAMAN: Raman was a middle class office executive who was yet again a milestone creation of Cartoonist Pran. His character was released by the then Prime minister Late Smt. Indira Gandhi. Raman is shown having two friends Moga Singh and Khaleefa - a Sikh and a Muslim. Together they stand representing three main religions that dominate India. The essence of Raman is to make people realize that laughter is important while working hard to gain our achievements. Raman through his comic books lived the situations close to the common man and expressed his comfort/discomfort/opinion through the same.

SUPER COMMANDO DHRUV: Dhruv Mehra or Captain Dhruv as he is called by his Commando Force is a fictional character created by Raj comics. He is shown as a normal boy who grows up and trains himself so well that he possessed many skills like speaking to most birds and animals and an expertise in martial arts. He is a stunt biker and a master of acrobats. He gets it from his parents who were workers in Jupiter Circus which plays in the fictional city of Raj Nagar. His name literally means pole star and just like the celestial body, he is strong and adamant on his decisions. The best part about Dhruv is that he does not have any alter ego. There is

Interview with Gulshan Rai MD, Diamond Comics Pvt. Ltd. What did the comics lose to; computers or television or anything else? In 2003 due to electronic media, there was a lot of effect on entire print media but after 2007 the print began to revive and now due to social media the print media is having the same position as before and now the sale of comics is increasing day by day. Do you see dwindling plots as one cause towards the comic world's downward trend? No. Do you see any hope that the void for superheroes left by Indian comics can be filled? Yes, positively. Now out of all the super heroes the selected characters are dominating in the print, electronic and digital media. Who all can help fill the void? I assume Diamond Comics is making all the efforts. Can public and private schools be roped in to help in the act? Yes, as we are making educational comics in all fields and also making customised comics for different products based on our famous characters for promotion. Why is it that foreign/ online comic heroes are highly popular in India while India's own have faded out? You are mistaken. Indian comics are having very good sales in the digital field whereas foreign comics are read by only one specific segment of people, but they have a worldwide market and Indian comics has only market in India. And also due to their publication in many languages it seems that the digital market of Indian comics is less. Who in your opinion are top ten comic book heroes that India has produced? Chacha Chaudhary, Billoo, Pinki , Sabu, Rakka, Nagraj, Dhruv, Shaktimaan, Motu Patlu, Shrimatiji, Raman, Mahabali Shaka, Fauladisingh and many more.

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MAY 2017 no mask or appearance that he pulls in front of rest of the world. People know who he is and what he is capable of doing. Another thing that makes Dhruv different is that he has no superpowers; however his dedication towards his work has made him a master of all trades. He has learned almost all kinds of martial arts and is master in hand to hand combat. Also, he is an expert marksman and has a very strong sixth sense. He is also the leader and founder of a fictional government â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Star Commando Forceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; which aims to diminish crime from the world. In one of his adventures Swarn Nagri came in existence. It was shown located under water hidden in a way that it could not be found by human eyes. It was shown occupied by Swarn Manas or the Deva. A Swarn Warrior Dhananjay was introduced who at first fought Dhruv but later he befriend him and gave him the ability to breath underwater for 20 odd minutes. In the same issue, Natasha was introduced who became Dhruvâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s love interest. With changing time and in line with the demand of readers, Dhruv was shown in more sci-fi fictions; he was shown fighting and saving the world from bigger threats like Aliens and mad scientists. Even during the dark ages of comics, Super Commando Dhruv was one of few comics which kept on being published and loved by the fans. Irrespective of all the powers and extra abilities, Dhruv was shown as down to earth and a humble person who respects elders and is well mannered. It was also shown that he loves his foster family more than anyone in the world. He has high value for human life and prefers to submit criminals to judiciary rather than killing them.

snakes and a mystic Gorakhnath who was said to be 300 years old. Although Nagraj succeed in stealing the statue initially, he was then defeated by Gorakhnath and his mongoose Shikangi. Gorakhnath reads his mind and comes to the conclusion that he was being puppet by Prof. Nagmani through a mind controlling device which was implanted in his head. After realizing this, Gorakhnath removes the device and sets him free. In return Nagraj becomes his disciple and vows to remove crime from earth. Since then Nagraj has been moving around defeating villains and terrorists. He lives as an alias of Nagraj Shah (Raj) and works as a TV channel employee. He is even shown having a secretary. Nagraj comics have a perfect mix of fiction, mythology, sci-fi and magic which takes them closer to both adults and children. Mysterious life and myths that rotate around snakes makes it more intriguing raising Nagraj to greater heights of popularity. His superpowers include him being ageless and having superhuman strength which developed and increased as the character evolved. He also had quick healing and is an expert martial artist. His acute sixth

NAGRAJ:

Nagraj was yet another blockbuster creation of Ra Comic books which touched the youth and climbed the ladder of favorites. Nagraj as the name says means king of snakes and was evolved from the myth of Ichchadhari Naga that is shape changing snakes. In his debut comic, he was shown being used by wicked Prof. Nagmani who wanted to use it as terror weapon against humans for his benefit. In his debut comic he was controlled by Prof. Nagmani and was asked to steal a golden statue of a goddess which was secured by her devotees,

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MAY 2017 sense, skills of a hypnotist and his psychic power made him stand out from others. His other attributes could be connected with other similarities that snakes share like poison bite, venomous breath, skin shedding. Some of his powers were given to him keeping mythology in mind which talked about shape shifting snakes. Most of his power comes from the millions of microscopic shape shifting snakes which live in his blood. Nagraj just like Super Commando Dhruv has survived the worst times for comic books and has been loved throughout.

BANKELAL: He is a comic character who is always shown in search of some way through which he could kill the King Vikram Singh and take over the throne. At the start of every comic book, he discovers some secret or important information surrounding which he designs his schemes. However, every time by the end of the comic his scheme backfires and King Vikram Singh gets profited. By the end of every comic book readers are left laughing. Bankelal was given the appearance of a not so good looking man. He has a small Charlie Chaplin kind of moustache and buckteeth. Bankelal is shown as the adoptive son of ‘Nanku’ who’s a farmer and his wife ‘Gulabati’ who is a homely lady and a devotee of Lord Shiva. Bankelal has been portrayed as a

super notorious child. So much so, that in one story it was told that once when Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati visited his home and his mother offered them milk; Bankelal put a frog in the milk. This enrages Lord Shiva and he cursed him that in future if he ever tries to do any harm to anybody, his plan will backfire rather benefitting the victim. In doing so he will also get benefitted a little. His curse works in favor of King Vikram Singh which saves him from Bankelal’s trick gaining him more wealth with every experience.

DOGA: He is probably the most famous antihero of Indian comic books. His existence comes as an orphan infant found in the rubbish dump by dacoit Halkan Singh and he used him as a shield to save himself from the Police. After taking the child with him in his den he treated him like a dog (He even named him kutte) and made him witness horrors of life. Somehow he escapes his captivity with another girl Sonu who was kidnapped by the dacoit. Late he was shown getting in touch with four brothers i.e. Adrak Chacha, Dhania Khan, Haldi Khan and Kali Mirch Khan the owners of the Lion Gym and seeing his devotion they let him train under them. Vigorous training gave him lots of

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MAY 2017 muscles and strength. He also learned martial arts, boxing and marksmanship. He took the identity of Doga and wore a dog mask. His image is that of a one man army and he vows to remove organized crime. He is shown working mainly in Mumbai. His love interest is Monika who is the daughter of Inspector Cheetah, a retired police officer and a private detective.

However, his uncle, a professor K.K Verma saves him and shares his secret costume which when worn can give Vinay a lot of superpowers. He wears it and kills his enemies along with the head of police. His costume provides him with many atomic superpowers which include atomic rays, teleportation and shrink rays.

BHOKAL: He is a warrior prince descended from the fictional land of Pari Lok. His real name is Alop. He has come to yet another fictional town Vikasnagar on planet earth with the intension of taking part in a fighting tournament. He has superhuman strength and is a skilled swordsman. He also has a shield which helps him block any natural or supernatural attack. The shield also allows Bhokal to fly to his desired destination. His love interest was Turin, a princess from another planet. She later becomes his wife. She also has a shape shifting pet cat which can fly.

PARMANU:

A school going boy Vinay witnesses his classmate getting killed by some criminals and vows to revenge her death. He finds out that the head of police was behind this all. He finds out that the murder weapon a revolver and is chased by goons of the police head who wants him dead.

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TINKLE:

With the tagline â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Where learning

meets fun’ Tinkle meets every child’s expectation by being a complete package consisting of stories, comics, puzzles and quizzes. It has been an important part of developing India and its readership included many adults too. It had an intoxicating mix of stories and children columns and provided the perfect blend of education and entertainment. Characters like Suppandi and Shikari Shambhu, Tantri the mantri and Kalia came to fame riding Tinkle’s shoulders. Suppandi is one of the most famous character of Tinkle who is a simple villager whose ignorant but faithful attitude costs him many jobs. In one such strip a postman comes to deliver a letter for Suppandi and he being an illiterate asks him to read it for him. While he was reading it, Suppandi runs and covers the postman’s ears. When he was questioned for his action, he simply replied, “This part of the letters concerns my family business and I don’t want you to hear it.” In another one he was shown asking a blind beggar for his proof of blindness. When he told him that he cannot see the tree which Suppandi can see, this simpleton believes him and gives him alms while feeling sorry for him. His stupidity or lack of understanding left sreader chuckling every time. Shikari Shambhu got his title ‘Shikari’ (hunter) from the fact that he once fell on a tiger while trying to hide from him which made him unconscious. People thought that the tiger was captured because of his bravery and hence he has given the title. In reality Shikari Shambhu is a fearful hunter who rather lives life lazily. In most of his episodes, he tries to run away from dangerous animals but somehow ends up capturing them and becoming a hero. This character is always shown wearing a hat so big that it covers his eyes and curvy black moustaches. He is also shown carrying a large rifle which he has never used properly. Another character which was a regular in Tinkle was Kalia the crow. He has his friends Keechu and Meechu (the rabbits), Shonar (a deer) and Babloo (a bear). Apart from these there are Chamataka (a jackal) who is also the main baddie of the jungle who is either after rabbits or other small animals or after Babloo’s honeycombs. Kalia with his intelligence is shown saving

everyone from Chamataka. Chamataka also has a best friend Doob Doob (a crocodile) who is a little dumb and despises Kalia. Many times it was shown that Kalia fools Doob Doob to save the rabbits. Lubdubi is Doob Doob’s girlfriend and it is his dream to fly some day. Nasruddin Hodja was another creation of Tinkle which made its way to the reader’s hearts through his wit and cheeky ideas. He has many enemies, who try to put him down, however, Hodja with his smartness gets out of the situation turning the tables on his haters.

MADHU MUSKAN: Madhu Muskan was a humorous magazine where most of its characters were designed to make people laugh. The central character was ‘Daddy Ji’ who remained part of this comic book for almost 25 years. He was the poster boy for every Madhu Muskan issue. He was shown as self boasting who kept botching every situation. He was the kind of character who can be found in every family. Daddy and his son Jojo who is shown as the main source of Daddy Ji’s plight was another important character of the plot. Sometimes he teamed up with his

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MAY 2017 friend Headache, which does justice to his name when adding Daddy ji’s misery. Simple day to day life was portrayed between father and son. In one such front page Daddy Ji was shown brushing teeth and Jojo was telling him that he has taken his toothbrush to apply grease on his cycle. Daddy jee is shown as complete foodie. A typical Punjabi who loves non-vegetarian and loath any kind of diet. Some of Madhu Muskan’s covers made fun of his attitude towards food too.

his obesity. The 1974 New Year’s issue shows Chopat measuring Popat’s fat tummy saying every year there is an inch increment wondering what will happen to it in the year 2074. Malik Sahib is shown as their boss too.

At one place he was shown freaking out while reading Dr. Bhatnagar’s prescription where he was asked cut his diet to two chapattis a day and a bowl of yellow dal in his lunch, whereas Jojo is shown smirking on his situation adding to his misery by further describing that dal should be without salt and chapattis without ghee. Many such situations were added to make the character everyone’s favorite. Another character in Daddy Ji was Malik sahib who was his boss and a miser. He was shown as a Punjabi speaking man who adorned a flower above his ear.

BABLOO: Babloo, a teenage detective was famous for his valor and intelligence in solving mysteries. It was shown that his uncle is a superintendent of police and he always looked forward to taking his help in solving cases. Daku Pan Singh, as per the name this character was famous for his goodness and his love for pan where he gets immense strength after chewing on a pan. He is shown as a risk taking and fearless dacoit.

POPAT-CHOPAT: It was another loved cartoon of Madhu Muskan. The characters were the Indian version of Laurel and Hardy. Popat is shown as fat with his tummy bulging out from his shirt and Chopat as the slim one of the two. In many episodes Popat entertained readers by cracking joke on

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Amar Chitra Katha: As per records it is said to be one of India’s largest selling book series. It was created keeping the most basic thing in mind – to teach students more about Indian history and cultural heritage. The books were published under different genres. There were Fables and Folklores under which Panchtantra comes. :ike Aesop Fables, it used different animals and their natural characteristics, teaching human behavior and psychology. Stories like the ‘Thirsty Crow’, ‘The Lion and the Rabbit’, ‘Foolish Crocodile’ etc not only entertained children, but also left them with a lesson to learn. Next was Mythology where children

were given information about stories that build Indian culture whether it was Ramayana or stories of Krishna, Tales of Shiva or any other God and demon. Amar Chitra Katha brought it to every child’s shelf and explained with ease all that was to be known. The Epics was the genre under which stories like Mahabharata, Heroes of Hampi etc. were published. It was easier to make students understand the complication of Mahabharata through illustrated comics than telling them in the form of a story. For parents too, it was a good way of keeping children busy. Another genre which Amar Chitra Katha provided was Humor and Wit and The Biographies. Under these segments books like Birbal and Mahatma Gandhi were published. In short Amar Chitra Katha picked up the torch of educating children with aspects which were left untouched otherwise. It used the most loved medium to do the honor and needless to say that it is has been immensely successful. Keeping itself updated Amar Chitra Katha evolved and launched its free mobile app for Windows, iOS and Android phones where users can browse their favorite book from the archive and can also access the upcoming editions. There are both free and paid comics that users can either read in the app or can download on multiple devices using same account.

LOTPOT:

Lotpot was best known for its characters Motu and Patlu. They were friends with their physical appearance more or less like Popat Chopat but were much more popular among the masses. Motu as the name says was fat amongst the two and Patlu, resembling his name was the slim one. They were simple people with a heart of gold but are shown getting caught up in silly plots tickling the readers. Motu is also shown as an avid samosa fan as a samosa provides him with instant power. Their gang consisted of Ghasitaram who’s pet dialogue in every complicated situation being, “I have twenty years of experience of solving it.” Dr. Jhatka who is scientist and loves experimenting and inventing different gadgets, however none of his inventions are useful and most of the time Motu Patlu gets caught in trouble due to his funny inventions. Chelaram who was another funny member of the group his physical appearance consist of buckteeth which makes him stand out. Motu Patlu became so famous that in the year 2012 an animated series was developed which was an instant hit. There were some character additions in the animated series, namely Inspector Chingam, John the thief, Chaiwala (samosewala), boxer etc. The series just like its comics, was a big hit among children and adults.

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MAY 2017 CHANDAMAMA:

It was a monthly magazine which was present in most households. It was best known for its artwork and published long running stories full of mythology and magic. It had a very different approach towards story telling. It kept the suspense going taking cues from various Indian and foreign texts.

Many of its stories just like Panchtantra took animals as their muse and taught children different things in simple ways. It also started a story writing competition for children below 12 years which was judged by novelist Chhaya Singh and Vinay Kumar. Annual writing and painting competition held by Champak has been named ‘Champak Creative Childs Contest.’

It has published a very successful and never ending story of Vikram and Baital in which King Vikramaditya was given a task by Vamachari - a tantric disguised as a sage to bring Baital ( a pishach) for a religious practice. It was a difficult task which Vikramaditya vowed to fulfill. Every time Vikram captures Baital, he offers to tell a story with a promise that he will not speak or interfere in between. Baital always finishes a story with a question and asks Vikram to solve it for him threatening him every time that if he stayed quiet even after knowing the answer then he will face heavy consequences. Vikarmaditya was known for his valor and for his truthfulness, each time he is shown solving the riddle and Baital leaving him to go back to his resting place. Next issue starts from the start with Vikramaditya recapturing Baital to take him along with.

Comic books lived as a family member of every child who grew up in the 90’s and still remain fresh in their memory. Today when Indian Comic books are either on their way of digitalization, or have lost their charm, it is for us to help them survive by introducing them to our children. Today’s generation prefers watching cartoons on television rather than sitting and reading comics. They do not understand the thrill one feels while reading and the places our brain travels while reading. Irrespective of the odds, many comics in the race for survival have digitalized themselves and have their websites or Apps from where reader can access to the content. Now it is our job to let them get past our devices so our little ones too can live the enchanted world we accessed.

CHAMPAK:

Champak was a fortnightly magazine which was very popular amongst children. It was published in both a magazine style and comic strips.

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APRIL 2017

August 2017

Meet the Global Teacher Prize Winner of 2017:

Maggie MacDonnell Grown up in Nova Scotia, Maggie MacDonnell volunteered in Sub Saharan Africa in the field of HIV/AIDS prevention before she used her innovative skills on students moulding them from a problem into a solution. August 2017

APRIL 2017 Dr Sanjay Parva editor@scoonews.com

n a special congratulatory video message broadcasted into the ceremony hall, the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said “Maggie MacDonnell – on behalf of all Canadians – from one teacher to another - congratulations on winning the Global Teacher Prize 2017.”

“I’d like to say thank you to every teacher out there. Teachers owe responsibilities to many people – students, parents, the community, and the school board. But in the end, as all great teachers know – they are ultimately responsible for something far greater. They are responsible for the future – and for the world that will be shaped by the children they teach.” Speaking on the stage after being presented the award, Maggie MacDonnell said, “The nomination process created a means for more than 20,000 teachers to feel valued and revitalized and to have their professional commitment validated.

“On a personal note I would like to invite my students to share in this award, as I have won this not for them but with them.” Maggie MacDonnell is a native of Nova Scotia village, Canada. After completing her graduation, she volunteered and worked for the prevention of AIDS amongst the general masses in Sub- Saharan Africa. Post her Master’s degree, she realised her countrymen were being assaulted by environmental destruction and massive social and economic inequality. She saw this as an opportunity to tackle the issue by teaching indigenous Canadian communities in a small Inuit village called Salluit, nestled in the Canadian Arctic, surrounded by snow and ice and home to a pint-sized community of 1,300 people. Life at Salluit was not easy; temperatures dropping below minus 25 degrees resulted in high rates of teacher turnover. Many left their posts midway and others applied for a stress leave; a significant barrier to education at the Arctic. Her current school has no

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Principal who left after six weeks of stress leave. Moreover, gender issues, teenage pregnancies, high rates of sexual abuse, drinking, smoking and increasing suicides among youth are a common sight in the village. Working against odds, Maggie was determined to help her country people and turned her students from problems to solutions through her acts of kindness and designing a Life Skills program for the purpose. The program engages the students in projects of their interest – from cookery to mechanics and gives them a new positive platform to stand upon while contributing something positive to the community, thus boosting their self-confidence. Specific examples of her Life Skills Program include creating a fitness centre, running a community kitchen, and managing a second-hand store. Diabetes and obesity-related diseases are on the rise among the Inuit population, so the fitness centre has provided enormous health benefits to the entire com-

munity and not just Maggie’s students. Additionally, the students have managed to raise funds of nearly $40,000 for prevention of Diabetes in the community. A number of local people gather at the community kitchen to eat meals prepared by the students. They also take the meals on the road to distribute amongst the vulnerable and needy. The project has not only developed cooking skills among the students but has also helped in the equal distribution of food resources in the population. In an area where the cost of living is exceptionally high, Maggie’s students opened a store by gathering donated items and selling them at reasonable prices. This way they learned a variety of skills associated with running a shop – entrepreneurship, dealing with cash, and customer service, while the community benefitted from affordable second-hand goods. She also created a life skills program, especially for girls. Her labour has paid fruits with a 500% increase in registration of girls in programs previously dominated by the boys. Moreover, attendance at her school has dramatically improved with students getting involved in running a community kitchen, attending suicide prevention training and hiking through national parks to understand environmental stewardship. Maggie has also been a temporary foster parent to some in her community including few of her students and served as their lifesaver. “I think as a teacher in a small Arctic community, your day never ends. The school doors may close but the relationship with your students is continuous as you share the community with them”, says Maggie. Maggie MacDonnell has made an outstanding contribution to the lives of her students and everyone in Salluit and is a deserving winner of the $1 million Global Teacher Prize for 2017 – money she proposes to use for setting up an NGO.

Exclusive with Maggie MacDonnell How does it feel now? It feels absolutely fantastic and wonderful. I feel humbled by the honour. I am happy for my students who have visited here in Dubai and for my community people there in Inuit region. I am generally overwhelmed and a bit speechless on being recognised this way. My sincere apologies for that! What do you hope the award will bring for the citizens of Canada? I just hope the award brings attention to the indigenous communities of Canada, for the people of Salluit and it’s not momentary. Hope they are treated with the dignity they deserve. What will you do with $1 million prize? As mentioned before, I plan to work with my students to establish an environmental stewardship program that would help the youth reconnect with their diverse cultural traditions. I will be consulting the Varkey Foundation which is so experienced in managing incredible projects and looking forward to how I will inculcate these steps in my community. What would be your first step as a winner? Laughter! Probably to get away from all these cameras those seem to be encroaching upon me. Why do you feel it’s important to shine the light of global citizenship? Global citizenship is important because we are facing so many incredible issues in the world today and we need to cultivate critical thinking, compassionate behaviour and creative solutions in our youth, so that they are ready to tackle all the complicated challenges we have created and they are inheriting.

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MARCH 2017

Technology Meets

Reality

August 2017

Anjana Deepak writeback@scoonews.com

he world is on a mission to keep up with the pace of development. The human race has always been and will continue to be on the look-out for something bigger and better. One such area that has seen a meteoric rise is technology. Things that we only imagined till about a decade ago are now a reality including Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR), but what is it that we mean by these?

VIRTUAL REALITY (VR)

With Augmented Reality, users are able to interact with virtual contents in the real world, and are able to distinguish between the two. Go nowhere, and be transported anywhere. What a wonderful proposition to work with.

Virtual Reality is the creation of a virtual world in which users can interact with the virtual surroundings in real time. It is designed in such a way that a user cannot tell the difference between what is real and what is not. Virtual Reality is usually achieved by wearing a VR helmet or goggles similar to the Oculus Rift.

AUGUMENTED REALITY (AR) The merging of virtual reality with real life is Augmented Reality. Developers can create a character or an image within an application that will blend in with the real world. In the case of AR, people are able to interact and distinguish between virtual contents and the real world. Augmented Reality devices usually use some sort of geo location, such as GPS data of a userâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s device. It super imposes graphics, audio and other sensory enhancements over a real world environment in real time. This helps the userâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s immediate surroundings to be seamlessly integrated in the app in a way that makes it more personal.

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MARCH 2017 Emraan Kureshi Founder & MD, Active Media Innovations says “The Planet is on the evolution stage, technology is evolving with new trends and user experiences. The education industry is evolving with engaging new trends for students Black boards -have become interactive white boards

VIRTUAL REALITY AND AUGMENTED REALITY IN EDUCATION

Work books have become applications. Benches have transformed to digital desks (touch screens tables) Classroom teaching changed to Virtual teaching Since the evolution of digital media in the education systems, we have seen a great trend changing now to AR & VR. When a VR head gear is worn, the immersion happens in the digital world most importantly it controls the sensory parts of the human body (eyes and ears) that triggers the communication to the mind. The mind is the most receptive

3 MAIN CATEGORIES OF AUGMENTED REALITY TOOLS Augmented Reality 3D Viewers uses life size 3D models in your environment with or without the use of trackers. Trackers are simple devices that can be attached to the 3D models of the AR. Augmented Reality Browsers uses your camera display with contextual information. For example, you can point your smartphone at a building and it will display the history and its estimated value. Augmented Reality Games utilizes the actual surroundings the user is in and creates an immersive gaming experience. The biggest game to-date that uses augmented reality is none other than Pokémon Go. A game where the player needs to move about his surroundings to find a Pokémon. Augmented Reality devices like the

smart phone and tablets act like a magic mirror where the viewer can see holograms and can manipulate 3D models. Hundreds of AR apps are available on iPhone, iPad and Android. PC’s and connected TV Players can also use AR by using a webcam. The contents are then relayed to the screen. Like the PlayStation Move and the Xbox Kinect. Head mounted displays, glasses and lenses are also used to make AR more lifelike by being an active part of the entire user’s field of view. For example we have seen how Ironman interacts with Jarvis, which is uber cool. As we know digital interaction has been around for a while now, through the use of computers and the internet. But now the face of this digital interaction is changing. VR and AR are now being implemented into primary and secondary education. Let’s say for example, for teaching students about the Egyptian temples, these monuments can be recreated in a 3D environment where the students can be surrounded by this environment without having to leave the classroom. How

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when a FOCUSED communication is playing directly one inch away from your eyes. Internationally in European & American countries VR coaching has started, where a student need not come to a classroom if he/she missed class, the class can be directly streamed on a VR app. With the VR gear the immersion directly happens through recorded or streamed content. A very visual and interactive technology ‘Augmented Reality’ has also emerged, where the content of text books transforms to AR content just by placing a TAB on it. The inbuilt AR marker in the text books make the communication more informative and easy to understand with its 3D effects and animations. The trend of futuristic education is TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION WITH EDUCATION...soon in India we will see a transformation in the education system where AR will be used and VR will be integrated to make education more interesting, informative and interactive.”

about diving into the ocean and observing the flora and fauna found under the sea or watch a heart beating right in the middle of your classroom? That’s the kind of immersive and interactive education AR and VR can offer in the world of education. This is no more science fiction but can be entirely done with the appropriate devices. VR, though, initially developed for the gaming industry, today has a huge potential in education and training How about diving into the ocean and getting a lesson about the flora and fauna found under the sea or watch a heart beating right in the middle of your classroom? InMediaStudio has created the Immersive Worlds Project which promotes the method of immersive learning. The teacher activates scenarios on a tablet and through virtual reality glasses a student can immerse themselves in a sea bed environment to learn about marine biology. There are no textbooks used as the learning comes from being taken through the

Emraan Kureshi MD, Active Media Innovations

ocean environment. There is no better way than actually being surrounded in the environment youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re learning about. The teacher can also monitor what a student is seeing as it appears on the tablet. This ensures that the student takes away immense learning and the right questions can be asked and mistakes can be corrected. Meanwhile, Alchemy VR is creating an immersive educational experience in the form of a narrative on various topics where the user will get to see and experience myriad things. One such example is exploring the Great Barrier Reef. What makes Alchemy VR standout in this space is their partnerships which contribute to the high level of content they produce. Alchemy VR has partnered with Samsung, Google Expeditions, Sony, HTC, the Natural History Museum in London, and the Australian Museum in Sydney. They have made several projects for Google Expeditions which will soon release experiences on pyramids and the human body. Nearpod is an organization that

merges VR and AR technology with traditional lessons in a classroom for an immersive technology driven approach to learning. It utilizes 360 degree photos and videos in lesson plans. There are also options where students answer questions by typing into their laptop or tablet. Nearpod VR is giving us an idea of what the future of classrooms will look like. Curiscope is a start-up company focusing on VR in education , they have developed a Virtual Tee which is already turning heads. It works with one person wearing the t-shirt while another person with a smartphone launching the app and helps in learning about the human body in a remarkable way. This is a unique way to utilize AR in education and it is surely a sign of good things to come from Curiscope. More and more teachers, researchers and developers are contributing their ideas and inventions to create more interactive learning environments, resulting in some of the most creative, engaging experiences imaginable. Some examples of Augmented Reality

used to enhance education are: Augmented Reality Development Lab seeks to design projects that entertain as well as educate and are affiliated to companies such as Google, Microsoft and Logitech. Their goal is for classrooms to be able to purchase their user kits that come at different price levels and involves them in creating interactive, three dimensional objects for educational purposes. New Horizon helps some Japanese students and adults in learning and reviewing English lessons through first generation of augmented reality textbooks, courtesy, the publisher Tokyo Shoseki, for the New Horizon class. It is an app that uses the camera of the smartphone to present animated character conversations when aligned with certain sections of pages. Mentira in Albuquerque fuses fact and fiction, fantasy characters and real people to learn Spanish in the first AR language learning game. It intentionally mimics the structure of a historical murder mystery novel which allows for

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MARCH 2017 deeper more effective engagement with native speakers than many classroom lessons. Sky Map and Star Walk is available on mobile devices. It seems deceptively simple but packs a major punch of education via an AR approach. It requires the device to be pointed to the sky and will name the visible stars, planets and constellations and will also pop up additional astronomical information.

HELPING KIDS LEARN DIFFERENTLY Kids are some of the earliest adopters of technology. They are the ones who are into cool gadgets and apps. Developers are now looking to find the best possible ways to combine technology with traditional toys. There are several companies that are presently working on finding the perfect marriage between these two. With kids involved in technology there is a huge market for AR and VR, be it in play or education. SwapBots is an organization that fuses

traditional play with technology. A perfect example of a union between a traditional toy and AR technology is SwapBots, which are toys that kids can collect, customize, and battle with other swapbots using their smartphones. The other major advantage of this product is that it’s not too heavy on the pockets of parents which is an important factor for companies to consider while targeting kids. Developers are now looking to find the best possible ways to combine technology with traditional toys. Osmo is a projector which gets mounted at the top of an iPad and placed in a base so its standing upright and can see what is in front of it. Once you have this set up there are several things that you can do including games that involve shapes, basic coding, words, numbers, drawing and more. One such example of these games is called Newton, where balls fall from the top of the screen and the kids have to direct it into targets. It is accomplished by drawing various shapes to direct the balls into the targets. Osmo is a creative way to engage kids in educational play while combining technology. These are just a few examples. There are numerous other companies which have come out with different apps and games that are dedicated to various fields.

INDUSTRIES THAT ARE EMBRACING AR AND VR Education: Google announced the release of Expeditions, a virtual reality platform built for classrooms. Healthcare: Snow World, a VR experience helps burn victim’s deal with rehabilitation and wound care by distracting them with an immersive, snowy environment featuring snowball throwing penguins.

The future of education needs Greater Level of Engagement Exploratory discovery, experience-based, fun, awakens curiosity for learning. It helps one to remember longer, decide better and learn faster. Sridhar Sunkad, MD EON Reality Pte Ltd

Journalism: In late 2015, the New York Times, Outside Magazine and other publications embraced 360- Degree Videos to tell journalistic stories. Movie Industry: Major motion pictures like Star Wars, Jurassic World, Insurgent, The Avengers: Age of Ultron and others have released VR experiences to generate interest, excitement and a strong brand association.

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Automotive: Ford Motor Co. uses virtual reality to design cars before making an actual physical prototype. In Ford’s Immersion Lab, designers can use an Oculus Rift to walk around the car and even sit inside the vehicle to get an early idea of the customer experience. Retail: Augmented Reality app MODIFACE offers what it calls a Mirror. Users can look into a tablet and use to change the colour of their eyes and make-up. MODIFACE also has other apps that let you try different hairstyles, hair colour, nail colour or wedding dresses. The app is a dream come true for women who can now make informed choices before buying a product. A world of career opportunities is opening up as the industry continues to expand. Potential positions for job seekers might include UX/UI Designers, Unity Developers, 3D Modellers, Animators, Project Managers and Videographers. People who are interested in a career in this field need to be up to date on the trends- following social media conversations, attending webinars and conferences and by participating in online communities. VR entered the market for consumers in 2013 with the launch of the Oculus Rift Development Kit. The year 2016 brought consumers a new range of VR devices such as HTC Vive and Sony PlayStation VR. The industry is estimated to sell 500 million VR headsets in less than 10 years and has a very promising future ahead. Going by the VR market and the demand for it, it is expected to grow by the billions by the year 2020 reaching an estimated worth of $30 billion . Combined, both AR and VR have the potential to reap a market revenue of $150 billion.

VIRTUAL REALITY VS. AUGMENTED REALITY Though VR is always going to enclose your eyes and ears with lenses, displays and headphones , AR will be neatly tucked into the sides of your eyewear. AR glasses will cause etiquette problems as they 'disappear' whereas VR will go the other way with us very clearly 'plugging in' to a virtual world for a session. With pass-through cameras there could even be some kind of hybrid wearable that offers both. AR specs are lighter, more comfortable and are

Apple CEO Tim Cook seems to be a much bigger fan of augmented reality than virtual reality. "My own view is that augmented reality is the larger of the two, probably by far, because this gives the capability for both of us to sit and be very present talking to each other, but also have other things visually for both of us to see," Cook said. "Maybe it's something we're talking about, maybe it's someone else here that is not here, present, but could be made to appear to be present with us. So there's a lot of really cool things there."

more likely to be wireless than the VR headsets. As for price, it's all a bit of a muddle. Oculus Rift is $599, HTC Vive is $200 or more (but includes controllers), PS VR will be $399, Google Glass was $1,500 the HoloLensdev kit is a whopping $3,000. But you can also pick up mobile VR headsets for less than $10. Both AR and VR are said to be the future of training medical students as they are poised to replace textbooks. Microsoft has partnered with universities in the US and released a video to show how AR can teach anatomy. And in museums and education. â&#x20AC;&#x201C; What is this? Samsung is trialling both VR and AR in projects such as First Life at the Natural History Museum and Parthenon sculptures and Bronze Age exhibitions at the British Museum.

Samsung sees both AR and VR as emerging technologyies - not competing options but as different tools available for use depending on the subject matter and size of the group. The AR usage in industry is offering huge benefits by way of heads up display that keeps hands free and handy information in the users line of sight including NASA engineers and astronauts, construction and factory workers and airline customer service staff. We've also recently seen Google Glass pivot with a quiet comeback with plans to distribute the smart specs to companies and enterprises depending on their specific needs. That's key because often wearableâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most useful asset is their ability to be extremely specific to a person, place or situation in terms of design, size, safety and content.

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MARCH 2017 FUTURE OF VIRTUAL REALITY AND AUGMENTED REALITY The AR and VR technology has weaved itself into the education, industrial and even military sectors. There might be differences between the two technologies but both are being embraced with open arms across fields due to the ease with which tasks can be performed or learnt which was not possible a few years before. Educators have been using VR games not only as a source of fun but also to make a substantial difference in learning. Students need encouragement and inspiration to explore their capabilities. VR will eventually imbibe a desire for exploration more toward intellect and away from play. “The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless” said Jean-Jacques Rousseau, speaking in the 18th century. Students need encouragement and inspiration to explore their capabilities. The potential for Virtual and Augmented reality paired with Artificial Intelligence (AI) to enhance learning offers abundant possibilities. Augmented Reality applications can help students to see learning objects in 3D and guide them in understanding difficult concepts. AR visualizations will become integral part of the learning process. In the near future, AR glasses will make this process even more seamless as visualizations will require only a voice command or tap on our eyewear. “VR/AR holds immense potential to revamp the education system by means of offering multiple benefits and opportunities to the traditional classroom learning. It would not be hyperbola to say, VR is the next step to democratization of the knowledge. With VR Classroom setting, the rights to avail knowledge by all according to preference rather than force, clearly evidence the same. With creation of optimum VR contents, competent structuring and greater accessibility of VR hardware devices, the integration of VR in the education field seems to mark a breakthrough in the future. VR/AR promises enhanced engagement, visibility, high-

Ford Motor Co. uses virtual reality to design cars before it makes a physical prototype. In Ford’s Immersion Lab, Designers can use an Oculus Rift to walk around the car and even sit inside the vehicle to get an early idea of the customer experience. the man who spent $2 billion of Facebook's money on Luckey's VR Company Oculus, is enamoured. "We're working on VR because I think it's the next major computing and communication platform after phones," he said, "we'll have the power to share our full sensory and emotional experience with people whenever we'd like. Mark Zuckerberg

er retention, and focus. The application of best-in breed VR technology to the education field would attract even the most unresponsive users, making the traditional education system more alive, immersive and relevant. What emerges out of this analysis is, with VR/AR uniquely positioned, the education goes from abstract to innate in a blink of an eye. VR/AR shaping the future of education in a way, every student would avail the opportunities they had never met in traditional classroom settings.” Ankush Sharama, is the CEO of Yeppar, a startup focused on augmented and virtual reality solutions. The startup has fittingly restyled the manner in which people interact with print media like, newspapers, magazines, product catalogue etc… Virtual Reality will make the world’s best museums or marine life at the bot-

August 2017

tom of the ocean instantly accessible. In addition, the use of hand controllers in VR will help student’s master practical skills through visual and haptic feedback. Virtual Reality and simulation environments will integrate experiential learning across the disciplines. As the technology improves, students will receive immediate feedback on their performance. Embedding game dynamics in educational experiences will allow students to master skills and progress at their own pace. AI engines and eye-tracking software will transform how students interact with immersive environments. With a simple scan, students will be able to access augmented models representing anything from a part of the human anatomy to a famous monument to a molecule. Also, students can access websites directly from the AR app. For example after scanning a photo linked with a 3D model of the Eiffel tower and viewing the augmented Eiffel tower, students can go directly to a web page with more information on the famous monument. This experience creates a complete learning cycle and students will be able to retain knowledge for a longer period of time. Mark Zuckerberg says “I think people tend to be worried about every new technology that comes along. Critics worry that if we spend time paying attention to that new kind of media or technology instead of talking to each other that is somehow isolating. But humans are fundamentally social. So I think in reality, if a technology doesn’t actually help us socially understand each other better, it isn’t going to catch on and succeed. You could probably go all the way back to the first books. I bet people said ‘why should you read when you could talk to other people?’ The point of reading is that you get to deeply immerse yourself in a person’s perspective. Right? Same thing with newspapers or phones or TVs. Soon it will be VR, I bet.” As we say time and tide waits for no one, technology is here to stay and will continue to progress in leaps and bounds. AR and VR it allows its users to immerse themselves into environments today. This will only improve the understanding of these environments and concepts and will result in better outcomes with fewer mistakes.

ADVERTORIAL

Quikfee, PlanMySchool

Emerging Ed-Tech Solutions for Education

Mr. Yadwinder Mittal - COO - Vidhya Management

igitizing education is not only about smart classrooms and online tests; addressing other key points and empowering educational institutes on other pain areas like fee management or distribution of educational supplies will go a long way in empowering digital education in India,” emphasized both the cofounders of Vidhya Management Services, an NCR-based edu-tech company offering various products for the educational sector of India. The young company, that started its operations in 2016, has not only grown on to develop two distinctive products for various educational institutes, but also bagged Rs.6.5 crore in seed funding towards the development of products and to strengthen the operations and sales processes. The company also started its West India operations with a new office in Mumbai. These products offer solutions to the

Mr. Ashish Mittal - Co-Founder & CEO - Vidhya Management

troubles of education institutions, currently being directed to discontinue accepting cash fee payments and inhouse books and stationery shops, by CBSE and other state boards. Both the products are available on websites and Play Store apps, and are a perfect addition to the current government’s vision of digital India.

QUIKFEE Fee payments and collection have always been a pain area for education institutions and parents alike, considering the resources and diligence required in processing and tracking these transactions. “Quikfee comes as a relief to their troubles; by delivering a unified platform for parents/ students to make fee payments using multiple payment channels (credit/ debit cards, net banking, cash deposits at bank, payment via secure links, payment wallet), and pro-

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viding a financial solution portal to education institutions to conveniently manage and track their fee collection,” says Ashish Mittal, co-founder and CEO of Vidhya Management Services. With CBSE’s notification (2016) to its affiliated schools on fee collection, cash as a mode of payment has gone out the window. Other modes (namely cheques and online banking), though a convenient way out; involve a huge task of collecting, acknowledging, reporting and analysing the fee payments. The co-founders, realizing this gap, stepped in to develop this hasslefree and elaborate platform that not only allows users to make/ accept fee payments, but also provides instant receipts, and detailed reports and analysis. “Quikfee has already established partnership with 2000+ education institutions around the country, with more than 12000+ transactions per day.

Currently we are growing at almost 3032% quarter to quarter and expecting to reach a potential growth of 35% by the end of this fiscal year. The platform aims at expanding its operations and scope by bringing more education institutions on board, also liaising with multiple payment partners to ensure world class customer service,” said the CEO, while talking on the current growth and expansion plans.

PLANMYSCHOOL “‘Utter chaos!’ – this is how most parents that we spoke to described the start of a school session,” says Mittal, founder of the latest disruptor in the education space – PlanMySchool. This young start-up, established by IIT & IIM graduates, aims to simplify the school supply-purchase experience for harried parents by enabling schools to set-up their own online e-stores. All over India, as soon as the new school session starts, parents shudder at the thought of having to go from book-store to book-store hoping to find all the books prescribed by their children’s schools, not to mention the visits to the

uniform store, the shoe store and the stationery shop. The school’s in-house book store offers them a solution, but the incessant rush, long queues, limited availability and effort of lugging all the books back home, is a big put-off. Schools, on the other hand, face the onerous task of determining the best school-books that support their curriculum, liaising with suppliers for adequate availability of these books in their in-house book stores, arranging for their storage, as well as staffing and manning of their in-house stores. Recent directions from CBSE and state boards to shut schools’ in-house shops has further limited their ability to serve the parents’ and students’ needs. PlanMySchool proposes a viable solution to this conundrum. It works with schools to enable them to establish estores, where parents can purchase books online or via a mobile app and get entire book-sets and supplies delivered right to their doorstep, and that too with attractive discounts. The solution, interestingly, comes at no additional cost to the school and enables inventory management and sales and

delivery tracking for a variety of school supplies ranging from books, uniforms and stationery to e-learning resources. “The value proposition is clear,” says Mittal. “We offer schools a no-cost alternative to their in-house bookstores, without having to bother about stocking, retailing, payments and packaging. Schools can even retain their existing vendors, and in fact, better manage multiple vendors through our intuitive platform.” This has found favour with a large number of educational establishments, with more than 300 schools having signed up with PlanMySchool all over India. With millions of Indians taking to ecommerce for buying everything from groceries to garments, e-sales of school supplies is an idea whose time has come. This is evident from the traction that PlanMySchool has been seeing, having already managed more than 3 million book deliveries over the past few months. We will continue to track this young start-up as it aspires to become India’s one-stop shop for school supplies in the next two years.

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How EdTech COMPANIES are Transforming INDIAN Education... This certainly is unlike the way it was in the past â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a big classroom, rows and rows of desks, a teacher holding a chalk, and his back mostly towards the class than the front. Blackboards, until turned white, meant no classroom activity had taken place

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FEBRUARY 2017 Dr Sanjay Parva editor@scoonews.com

“Indian education sector till date has been relatively under penetrated by technology. Given that spends on education ranks amongst the top 3 spends on an Indian household, the opportunity for technological penetration is massive. The size of the physical coaching market has been estimated by ASSOCHAM to be above $40bn growing at 35% annually. NSSO estimates that 3 out of every 4 students studying in schools in metros utilise professional tutoring services. Yet, there was no online service available to address the requirements & concerns of students & parents looking for quality verified tutors”.

ducation is the most powerful weapon that can change the world", said Noble Laureate Nelson Mandela. With the advent of an array of educational technologies in this century, this weapon has got even more arsenal tagged to its belly. But how far and how correctly has this arsenal been used so far is something that every educationist must ask him or herself ?

Vidhu Goyal, WONK App

Enter a classroom now and you will be amazed to see a fifth grader skimming Google to know more about photosynthesis, a sixth grader learning about the effects of heat literally through YouTube, a senior student testing his circuit through simulation, students using social media like Faceboook and twitter to passionately debate about the current happenings, teachers uploading the class assignment on Google drive and students attending online tutorials, seminars and lectures of their interest.

With initiatives like Digital India, affordable data providers like Reliance Jio across rural and urban areas and the inset of cheap smart phones, India is on a trajectory of absolute digitalisation which is projected to come to fruition by the year 2020. We as a nation must prepare the coming generation for when that day comes.” Anushka Rajani, Head of Business Development at IIDE strongly believes that “Digital is the way to go! If you fail to adopt digital at this point in time, your business and you will be obsolete in no time. It’s either go digital or go home”.

This certainly is unlike the way it was in the past – a big classroom, rows and rows of desks, a teacher holding a chalk, and his back mostly towards the class than the front. Blackboards, until turned white, meant no classroom activity had taken place. In this century, where technology is interwoven in every activity of our lives, it has steadily made inroads into the education sector also, slowly and steadily changing its face. Knowledge is no more limited to textbooks and use of platforms as chat, videos etc, has expanded to include latest technology and application to be at the beck and call of students and teachers alike – this is the century of ‘educational technology’, popularly known as EdTech. EdTech has taken education to another level, making learning more fun and interactive. "Technology is not an event, it is part of everyday life," someone has rightly remarked. Given this background, it is important to understand what is education technology or EdTech, how was the education system before the penetration of technology ? what are the current areas where EdTech is used in Indian education system? what are the changes that it has brought out in the field? Who are the players in the scenario, popularly known as EdTech companies? their budget, aims and future plans, feedbacks of the users, road blocks, areas of

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Karan Shah, CEO, Indian Institute of Digital Education (IIDE)

Every industry is moving towards digitalisation. This is also the case when it comes to the education system. The current education system does not give ample space for children to implement their creative thoughts practically. With so much of competition it is very essential that the kids are digitally equipped. The first step to get the kids well versed is to get the teachers acquainted with the latest developments on the technological front”. Vidushi Daga, Director of Clone Futura Education

improvement, EdTech and the future of education technology and pros and cons of using technology in education.

WHAT IS EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY?

Education technology is the study and ethical practice of facilitating e-learning, which in turn improves the performance of learners by creating, using and managing appropriate technological processes and resources. Previously, teachers used to teach in rigid, formal and stereo-typed ways, with education being conceived as the process of transmitting knowledge and ideas. Students were silent audience then and couldn't make any logical

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Though the role of a teacher has changed to that of a facilitator, and we with the help of technology, have rolled out products and solutions which provide interactive audiovisuals, hands-on activities and simulations that appeal to the auditory, visual as well as kinaesthetic learner, thereby helping the teacher with essential tools for imparting lessons. Beas Dev Ralhan, CEO, Next Education echoes

queries or independent thinking of their own. "It was do what I say, as I say". Today, the student is not considered as an empty vessel to be filled in by facts and figures. They are considered as thinking individuals and are expected to use all available materials to get learning experiences from all sides. In the current trend education is regarded as a process of interaction and interpersonal communication. The modern teacher has to help, guide and facilitate the learnerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s development. The teacher has to inspire and motivate the young learners and assist the adult learners in their quest for knowledge and skills. Beas Dev Ralhan, CEO, Next Education echoes almost a similar sentiment.

THE HISTORY OF USE OF TECHNOLOGY IN EDUCATION Usage of technology in education could be traced back to the early days of using tools to paint on cave walls. It can be said that the use of technology in education started with the introduction of educational films, in around 1900s or Sidney Presserâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mechanical teaching machines in the 1920s. The first large scale usage of new technologies can be traced to US WWII training of soldiers through training films and other mediated materials. Today, it's more of audio visual presentation style technology that is based on

the idea that people can learn through aural and visual reception in many forms like streaming audios and videos, or power point presentations etc. In the 1990s, there were a variety of schools that had computer-based learning (CBL) systems. They were frequently based on constructivist and cognitivist learning theories. These environments focused on teaching both abstract and domain-specific problem solving learning. The 2000s saw the emergence of multiple media and ubiquitous technologies which gave a new impulse to learning-in-context scenarios. One of the schools that took early lead

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FEBRUARY 2017 EdTech companies are on a high from the last 2 years and the run is expected to continue as long as the sector remains recession proof. There are major constructive impacts that are expected to transform the sector. EdTech has been envisioned as an ambitious outreach to transform learning and development being digitally empowered to create a knowledge society led economy. The use of smartphones, mobile apps and internet services to impart education in far-flung areas where teachers’ access is difficult, makes knowledge availability seamless. The EdTech adoption is also being used now to improve retention rate of students in schools, colleges and skill development institutes”. Rishi Kapal, CEO, EduGild

in integration of technology in education is Canadian International School (CIS). Says its executive director, Shweta Sastri: “We have accomplished many firsts; back in 2011, we introduced one-to-one iPad integrated teaching and learning programs. The seamless blend of education and technology increased the student’s motivation and interest in learning. It promoted individualized learning, improved computer literacy and encouraged students to question concepts because they could research in

of technology in education can be justified as either the knowledge deepening approach, which means increasing the ability of students to add value to the society and economy by applying it to solve complex, real-world problems; or knowledge creation approach, which means increasing the ability of students, to innovate, produce new knowledge, and benefit from this new knowledge. The overall mood in the education industry is upbeat at the moment and many stakeholders are of the view that if looked at in the right earnest and correct approach, EdTech is certainly going to transform the Indian education system.

real time. Teachers found ways to make learning fun and inclusive with the help of technology. Today, every classroom at CIS is equipped with iPads, Apple TV's, projectors and Mac Mini computers in the classroom to make learning more meaningful. Additionally, we have 2 tech suites, a green screen and maker space to promote use of technology in education”. Students are now growing up in a digital age where they have constant exposure to a variety of media. Now, the use

The definition of technology is fluid: Kriti Parashar, Director, South Asia, Minerva Schools at KGI There is no doubt that technology has crept into the education sector in a big way. Educational institutions not just in India but elsewhere in the world, in a bid to differentiate themselves have invested in all kinds of technology. Of course the definition of technology is fluid and depends not only on the moolah available but also the customer base that the institution targets. Technology investment spans everything from replacement of the black board with smart boards, to replacement of the notebook with tablets or the adoption of applications that provide free and customized content that claim to help students master specific topics. Gadgets, applications and software are available in plenty, claiming to transform all aspects of the education experience. However, technology has, arguably, had the greatest impact on education in India in one particular realm: increasingly accessibility. With widespread internet access, increased

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adoption of digital devices and the advent of online video courses, just about anyone can access, share, and even contribute knowledge and information today, straight from their fingertips. This coupled with prices ranging from a few hundred to absolutely free for online courses, it appears at first glance that technology has rectified one of the fundamental flaws of traditional education: barriers to entry. However, such widespread content has also been associated with poor or unmeasured learning outcomes, and lack of structure. As such, online courses or educational content apps are more often used as either introductory or supplemental content, rather than as an equitable, and accessible alternative to classroom education. Therefore, infusion of technology in the direct education delivery has not taken place for the most part. As technology use becomes even more rampant across all aspects of education acquisition and delivery, it is also important to pon-

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der on a few important points - technology adoption will yield superior learning outcomes than the traditional way when technology is not merely used as a facelift for the archaic models of education delivery and content dissemination. Technology needs to deliver content and teaching strategies in a way that students are better prepared for the modern world. In addition, while access to all kinds of information is now easier than ever before thanks to technology, students also need to learn how to validate information, how to synthesize it, how to leverage it, how to communicate it, how to collaborate with it, and how to solve problems with it.

TECHNOLOGIES USED CURRENTLY IN THE CLASSROOMS Computer in the classroom: With a computer in the classroom, teachers are able to demonstrate a new lesson, present new material, illustrate how to use new programs, and show new information on websites. The earliest innovations and successful EdTech business models were created around providing software and hardware to make the classroom experience better. A lot of this is about making multimedia based study material, and having computers and screens in classrooms where audio-visual material can be used to teach. Class blogs and Wikipedia: There are a variety of web based tools that are currently being implemented in the classroom. Blogs allow students to maintain a running dialogue, such as a journal, thoughts, ideas, and assignments that also provide for space for student comment and reflection. For example, Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia, allows multiple members of the group to edit a single document and create a truly collaborative and carefully edited finished product. Wireless classroom microphones: Noisy classrooms are a daily occurrence, and with the help of microphones, students are able to hear their teachers more clearly. Students learn better when they hear the teacher clearly. Mobile devices: Mobile devices such as tablets or smart phone are used to enhance the experience in the classroom by providing the possibility for better usage. The size, budget and easy availability make it a lucrative option. Interactive Whiteboards: An interactive whiteboard that provides touch control of computer applications. These enhance the experience in the classroom by showing anything that can be on a computer screen. This not only aids in visual learning, but it is interactive so the students can draw, write, or manipulate images on the interactive whiteboard. Digital books, digital newsletter and publishing of students work by desktop publisher enrich the students vocabulary. Digital video-on-demand: Digital video eliminates the need for in-classroom hardware and allows teachers and students to access video clips immediately by not utilizing the public Internet.

"IFIM Institutions have been relying upon EdTech to enhance the learning experience of our students since the last 5 years. Today the institution is equipped with a popular learning management system, a comprehensive Campus ERP solution, live lecture recording and streaming solution in all its classrooms and a very powerful CRM system all developed by Indian EdTech Startups. These applications are deployed on the Azure Cloud and are seamlessly integrated for use by our students and faculty. The institute is also one of the first few to have deployed and integrated at work from Facebook for creating learning communities and interest groups for information and knowledge exchange. The deployment of these systems has resulted in a valuable data warehouse which is being mined to capture learning behaviour of our students and to impact changes in our curriculum and pedagogy for enhancing the efficacy of teaching and learning at IFIM". Sanjay Padode, Secretary (CDE), Institute of Finance and International Management (IFIM)

Online media: Streamed video websites can be utilised to enhance a classroom lesson. Also online study tools motivate students by turning studying as more fun or individualised for the student. Digital Games: The field of educational games has been growing significantly over the last few years. Digital games are being provided as tools for the classroom and have a lot of positive impact including higher motivation for students. Many other tools are being utilised depending on the local school

board and funds available at their disposal. Gamification: It is one of the most appreciated approaches to technologydriven learning and is a potentially revolutionary idea. The biggest challenge in education is to engage students in a meaningful way, and make them genuinely interested in the subject. Gamification attempts to make this possible by reducing drudgery of studying and chances of getting distracted by embedding a lesson itself inside a game. Also, introduction of

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FEBRUARY 2017 EdTech companies are working overtime to bring in something that addresses at least one of the pain points of either students or educators. Take, for instance, the case of KIWAMI Geometry, which helps students to get over the common fear of geometry and helps them to visualize shapes which are difficult to visualise. Mitsuyo Tamai, Representative Director, KIWAMI notes: "Technology in education is the latest and most prominent trend however, ICT based learning is still catching up in India. Not every schools in Indian metro cities has been able to introduce ICT based learning completely. Though ICT based learning has been received positively by the students where ever the pilot programs have been done but it has a long way to go in India starting from the metros. ICT based learning has made the whole process fun for the students where they can actually learn using imaginative thinking to resolve complex problems related to maths and science."

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Why schools need Apps and ERPs: Gaurav Mundra, CEO, MyLy App

August 2017

Cashless India – With India becoming lesscash (if not cashless), schools will need to be ready to collect large and small payments in non-cash mode. This means requirements of reconciliation and integration of technology to accept plastic money. Digital India – With increasing awareness in an increasingly mobile parent population, communication on paper is no longer sufficient. SMS and Email don’t make the cut due to inherent limitations. Compliance requirements – With affiliation bodies like CBSE and various state governments asking for more and more data in

leader boards, awarding of badges on completion of tasks, showing daily graphs of progress, breaking down learning in small tasks and so on tend to make a lot of students more interested in studying. Interactive multimedia based teaching: Progress in EdTech has led to much more than just multimedia content in the classroom. The Education Resource Planning (ERP) software by the pioneer in EdTech, Educomp, changed the whole education pattern as more interaction through multimedia could be made possible. Online testing system: It gives more accurate score, analysis and data backup. Virtual education and distance learning: Online learning or Live Virtual Classrooms (LVCs) have opened new avenues in the education sector. With the evolution of technologies such as the Cloud, Data Centers & Virtualization, the digital education ecosystem that we foresee is not a distant reality. There is a growing affinity by Indian youth for new technologies and products such as tablets, notebooks, LMS and IWB, educational institutes, and schools as there is a huge potential for technology to be integrated into education industry. Trickling down to the K to 12 segment, number of rural schools and teachers are embracing the ‘selflearning’ teaching models, serving as a significant communication bridge between students and teachers.

Performance management and tracking system: This allows teachers and management to assess the students all round performance, analytical data, exam scores, continuous evaluation performance, class participation, and attendance etc, related to the student’s performance. It is very easy to collect such data and create automated reports, graphs, alerts and action points for the benefit of principals, education policy makers, and even individual teachers. Students who need special attention can be easily identified, and performance of teachers can become measurable as well. Homework and assignment tracking system: Getting students to do their homework is probably the most difficult thing for a teacher. The technology makes it a win-win situation. Homework can now be done even on a smart phone that would enthuse a kid and for senior students, reading, retention and application can be tested online, and data over the year can be collected to measure the track record of a student. Such systems can also be part of an ERP or broader performance tracking systems. Classroom based distance learning: Satellite beaming of live classes or VSAT, study centers equipped with hardware where students interact with a teacher teaching remotely became very common for a lot of private sector tutorials, especially for test preparation. Even Indian government has tried to promote this model in the past with help from IITs. However, while low cost and high speed of internet have made

near real-time, it will not be possible for schools to collect this data first on paper and then compile to submit in time. Ability to personalise – Students are behaving like customers for a change. They demand personalization of learning and that is only possible with the help of big data analytics and artificial intelligence. Information impatience – No one has patience to wait for information, so much so that it is the theme of most of the ads that our telecom companies make. Systems will be needed for the modern day school to work well. Remember, technology will not replace schools. But schools who use technology will replace those that don’t.

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FEBRUARY 2017 What does the Indian education system do differently?: Arun Jagannathan, CEO, Crack Verbal

this technology more viable and VSAT unnecessary, infrastructure cost of study centers and real estate prices work as a restraint on this model. Social platform for online discussion: Many social learning platforms like Grockit, and Remixlearning.com have achieved tremendous success. In India, Pagalguy.com is a good example, but there are not too many other instances of social learning, especially for primary and high school education. Online learning management system: These are computer-based learning environments that are used to deliver content, track progress of learners and sometimes to administer exams. This is quickly changing the horizon of possibilities when it comes to affordable access to high-quality teaching. Flipped classroom: This is where teachers assign students to watch lecture videos as homework and carry out discussions in class. There are many platforms and apps for teachers where they can gather studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; details faster, check attendance, conduct online tests, grade answer sheets, enter marks, do analysis on the performance, and thus be able to analyse data faster. The justin-time feature allows teachers to focus on matters of immediate concern. These platforms help the teachers to choose interesting teaching resources, methodology, various questions, crafts, games, quizzes etc. Open education resource and adaptive learning platform: Some companies like Projia provide software that enables teachers to create student specific teaching content and technology. This addresses the difference seen in the students learning ability successfully.

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With Satya Nadella becoming the CEO of Microsoft, and Sundar Pichai becoming the CEO of Google, one question that many people around the world are asking is "What does the Indian education system do differently?" I think Indians are known for focussing on education right from the childhood and the emphasis we put on subjects such as Science and Mathematics is unparalleled. We are always on the lookout for something that would give us an "edge" in this brutally competitive space. Hence, it should come as no surprise that Indian students and parents are also taking to EdTech equally enthusiastically. In the higher education space, especially GRE and GMAT test preparation, we have seen a huge traction at CrackVerbal. Our online solutions have been taken by a lot of students, many of whom are busy professionals. This is a trend we have seen accelerating in the last few years. The lower internet bandwidth (thanks partially to Reliance Jio) has also caused an increase in online video consumption - a healthy sign for EdTech. Our classroom students have also benefited from the online videos, which supplements the classroom learning.

Rapid content authoring system: This allows content developers to develop online resource.

realistic. Biometric sign-in points for staff, and video monitoring are other roles of technology in education.

Classroom delinked technology: It helps students to expand their knowledge as learning languages at their own pace.

On a more social front, the digital alternatives like Integrated Digital Interactive Classroom (IDIC), Content Management System (CMS) and Classpad can bring an element of reliability in students â&#x20AC;&#x201C; making them more competitive in their respective courses. Against this backdrop, there is a huge potential for educators in India to leverage the missing link between teachers and their students â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and bridge the digital divide.

In the same way from an administrative point of view, school webpages have become more interactive providing all information about the schools. ERP is automated and can be accessed by all stakeholders. It has revolutionised online payments, mass message sending and communication between school, students and parents The school buses can be tracked by the school and parents through GPRS system making the safety feature more

Thus EdTech has brought in personalized learning, one-to-one computing, and blended learning. The digital platforms, by a huge margin, strategically deal with the less innovative pedagogy

Talking in terms of the global reference, DesiOPT.com is a case in point. An innovative startup, it helps Indian students align for higher education in USA and assist them find best career opportunities. This startup has created the largest International student community; almost a quarter million. Naren Yell, DesiOPT's founder and CEO remarks: "With the advent of technology, perhaps the most interesting of the things which we could think of was making student connectivity and engagement easy with each other globally. This is a great transformation for Indian education as students in India can directly connect with students in USA to exchange ideas and share knowledge. Due to this startup more than 5000 students are benefited. It helps Indian students align for higher education in USA and assist them find best career opportunities".

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FEBRUARY 2017 Believes that introduction of accreditation module in the ERP has benefitted innumerable number of institutions and will be beneficial to many more in the near future which in turn would bring out a remarkable transformation in the overall Indian education system.

Technology helps educators improve their teaching skills: Amit Mahensaria, Co-founder & CEOImpartus Innovations

Suman Nandy, Founder and Director, Epaathsala

styles and lack of teachers for specialized subjects – giving students the best e-learning experience and seeding an element of independency in their learning style. Recognizing the increasing importance of technology in education and employment, the Indian government has a scheme that grants every public school in the district, regardless of the number of schools it contains, of Rs. 5m [£49,700] every year to invest in educational technology. Districts have to submit a proposal in order to be granted the funds. The government estimates that 22% of primary schools have a computer, but the reality is that many schools aren't using the equipment they have. In India's booming private education sector, technology is being adopted much more quickly. As many as 400 educational technology firms have launched in the past 10 years, yet the quality and longevity of their products is far from uniform. There are several factors responsible for that, not falling in the scope of this story.

EDTECH : THE LEADING GIANTS AND STARTUPS EdTech is a growing sector. The way EdTech has evolved is very interesting . While originally it aimed at providing a fun alternative to learning activities in terms of education-related games and platforms in general, they have now come all the way to including technologies dedicated to enhancing learning and education itself. If we look at the numbers, India’s online education market is set to go as high as $2.5 billion by the year-end, according to a research done by RedSeer Consulting. The report had further estimated a total of

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When it comes to classroom education, we hadn’t seen much adoption in technology apart from overhead projectors or digital monitors. Students still had to struggle the same way we had to a couple of decades back, struggling to note down the lectures. As a result, a huge portion of the lectures would get missed by most students and they would have to rely on photocopied notes from toppers or YouTube videos. We started Impartus Innovation in 2013 on this note. The core objective was to make the learning experience more fruitful and easier with the help of our video based technology solution. Our flagship product is Lecture Capture, a video technology solution that captures classroom lectures, records and streams them online both on demand and live, for students to view the classroom lectures from anywhere anytime. Impartus’ video solution enhances traditional classroom teaching by enabling self-paced personalized learning, expanded access to relevant content, and the ability to extend learning experiences across geographies. Our solution also acts as a great teacher improvement tool. Educators are able to improve their teaching skills and use blended learning models such as lecture capture and flipped classroom to facilitate higher student engagement. Our strategic partnership with Xerox Research Center India (XRCI) further adds to our R&D and together we aim at improving and enhancing our product with new and more interactive features to help enhance the learning as well as teaching experiences. For example, the XRCI technology will enable more efficient video search and navigation, including multimodal topic extraction, and will offer contextually relevant content to supplement recorded videos in classrooms. We have seen a substantial improvement in students’ learning outcome and better academic performance after adopting our technology solution. The level of interactivity during classroom sessions as well as outside classrooms has improved rapidly. From a boring classroom where the teacher teaches and the student are busy taking down notes, we have been able to transform the one-way communication scene to an interactive and two-way communication process. We have also seen a boost in flipped classroom practice and peer-to-peer learning through our technology.

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FEBRUARY 2017 20 million students between junior high to senior school who would count as the contributors to this market. Interweaving technology with education seems to be helping students at all levels. Many educators in the know swear by instructional videos while parents are gradually opening up to the possibility of a platform which may help their wards learn something new in an innovative manner. The use of education technology is not restricted to cities and metros, as one might believe. It is expanding its base to Tier II and Tier III cities as well. One of the reasons for this is difficulty in having access to proper instruction channels and resources/quality of education available to city students.

important to understand where the EdTech industry is headed and how it’s potential can be tapped in order to change the stark realities prevailing in India with respect to education at the grassroots. A rough estimate shows that there are close to 400 startup's springing on board with already many giant players being established in the field. Some of the top players are NextEducation, Educomp, Vedantu, Edugild, Toppr, Embibe, Byju’s, SimpliLearn, UEducation, CultureAlley, Edukart, Robomate, Academia, Entab, Myly, Opendoor, Srjna, Words Worth,

Pearson, Aptech etc. Smartclass from Educomp Solutions is one of the first Indian companies in this space. Smartclass is essentially a digital content library of curriculummapped, multimedia-rich, 3D content. “Technology makes the teaching-learning process very easy and interesting,” says Harish Arora, a chemistry teacher at the Bal Bharti Public School in New Delhi who has been using Smartclass since 2004. According to Abhinav Dhar, director for K-12 at Educomp Solutions, more than 12,000 schools across 560 districts

With globally a billion people benefitting from EdTech, India has not been exactly far behind, with a crop of Indian entrepreneurs working on EdTech targeted at indigenous problems. For policy makers, it is very

EdTech companies are fuelling data-driven education: Vishesh Goyal, CEO MeetCareer.com Recognizing the escalating importance of technology in the education industry, EdTech companies are playing an important role in transforming Indian education by leveraging technology. With the use of technology EdTech companies endeavor to change education for the better – make it more accessible, persuasive and affordable to benefit the student community. With the help of many EdTech companies, the government is able to drive digital reach for the progress and economic growth of Indian education sector. According to the survey conducted by EduStars, nearly 61% of Indian companies have created tab and mobile applications in the education space. Of this, 54% have leveraged Cloud and the rest are using video technology. The education sector of India offers great opportunities that everyone is looking to conquer using latest technologies. It is a known fact that in the internet space, video is the most engaging form of content, hence the EdTech companies are making use of technology to compress the information or data so that it can be compatible for easy transfer between devices even with just a 2G network connection. The success is not

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about creating great technologies for educational purposes, it is about making facilities available to students. With the help of these EdTech companies, students are getting assistance in various segments such as tutoring, career counseling, coaching search, job assistance, college suggestions and even for schooling purposes. Most of the EdTech companies work as an online marketplace for teachers and students to meet and connect with one another. Every student who has the zeal to learn something beyond just their syllabus should definitely try these platforms. Students also get an opportunity to decide what they want to learn and how with the help of EdTech companies. It also helps in better understanding of the concepts through digital aids. Apart from these, it is also considered as the best tool to analyze the strength and weakness of each student. All students cannot be handled with the same standard of teaching; this is where such technology-based teaching techniques come in handy. With the help of EdTech concept, the content is engineered according to each student’s need. Apart from bringing a difference in every

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student’s life through technology-based education, these EdTech companies have the power to attract the attention of investors. This interest among investors is a big reason why there is a direct impact of using technology in the Indian education system on the Indian economy. Also, these EdTech companies are fuelling the development of datadriven education technologies. Schools, colleges, and even professionals are now able to seek new skills with the help of these fundamental changes in the Indian education system. From tutoring and training on various topics, subjects and skills to financial assistance, motivation, and counseling everything is made available by EdTech companies to ensure each student is successful in his academic and career lifecycle. hese EdTech companies are making great efforts in creating student’s interest in using technology in education. This approach is helping students both mentally and intellectually to overcome different challenges of the real world. These institutions can be considered as hand-holders right from students’ education life to the time they find the right career path for themselves.

EdTech companies are one of the main vectors in education system: T. V. Mohandas Pai, Chairman, Manipal Global Education The priority for the education system in India until now has been to drive mass enrollment and promote literacy. With a massive slice of the budget (?99,100 Cr between 20052012), large-scale policies like Operation Blackboard, the Mid Day Meal program, and Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, the national literacy rate is at 74.04% (2011) for adult literacy and 90.2% (2015) for youth literacy (between ages 15-24). Some states like Kerala are at 94% literacy. While we have done what was required to achieve this goal, it has come at the cost of quality and job readiness. I see education technology companies as one of the main vectors that will help our education system evolve to the next level and focus on delivering quality at scale. The goal has to be to make sure every enrolled student finds the most direct path to achieving their learning goals and to help them tangibly close on job outcomes. This can be achieved by a mix of public spending and innovation from EdTech companies. The government must focus on expanding the install base of the fundamental layers of innovation - providing free wifi at all educational institutions, a tablet to every student in every school and college in the country, enabling every teacher and school administrator with a smart device, and building a free and open national knowledge base of multi-lingual and multi-format content in every subject. On top of such an install base, EdTech companies can let loose a host of innovative value propositions and tech-enabled pedagogical models to enhance formal education and improve the learning experience of every student. These companies can drive products and services such as personalized and adaptive learning, multi-format simulations and practice environments, improved datadriven continuous assessments, and lifelong learning and training models to ensure that our students are learning more efficiently and are being prepared to thrive in a very different future. Our EdTech companies can drive the shift to prepare our students to move from rote learning and brute force memorization to becoming innovators and problem solvers in a new economy.

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FEBRUARY 2017 It is important to deploy technology effectively : Dr Nirav Khambhati, CEO, Tata ClassEdge and Tata Interactive Systems

in India have adopted Smartclass. More importantly, the number is growing at almost 20 schools a day. On an average, in each of these schools eight classrooms are using Smartclass.

"It is not about whether technology makes a difference but about how effectively technology has been deployed. Technology will never be able to replace teachers in classrooms; however, it can help good teachers amplify what they can achieve. It is very critical to focus on the method by which technology is applied. We cover close to two million children across India. This number includes students of both private and government-run schools. In most schools across India, there are no systematic interventions which allow teachers to continuously upgrade their capabilities and impart 21st century skills, such as collaboration, critical thinking and problem solving to students. We wanted to make a difference even while remaining within the confines of the prescribed curriculum and the current schooling system. We broke the curriculum into various teaching points and developed digital tool kits based on them. We also trained teachers to use the tool kits, which included audio and video aids, a digital laboratory, and games and activities, guaranteeing a certain minimum level of engagement and quality of teaching"

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According to the “Indian Education Sector Outlook - Insights on Schooling Segment,” a report released by New Delhi–based research and consultancy firm Technopak Advisors in May last year, the total number of schools in India stands at 1.3 million. Of these, private schools account for 20% and until now only around 10% of the private schools have tapped the potential of multimedia classroom teaching whereas in government schools, it has barely made any inroads. Rajesh Shethia, head of sales and marketing at Tata Interactive Systems, which launched Tata ClassEdge in early 2011 and has partnered with more than 900 schools, says that “more than half of the demand for digital classrooms is from Tier II and Tier III cities.” Srikanth B. Iyer, COO of Pearson Education Services, also sees tremendous potential in the smaller cities. Pearson provides end-to-end education solutions in the K-12 segment. Its multimedia tool, DigitALly, has been adopted in more than 3,000 private schools across India since 2004. “DigitALly installations have been growing at three times the market for the past two years,” HCL’s Digischool program, which launched couple of years ago, has also made a strong beginning, with a client base of more than 2,500 schools. The same sentiment is echoed by Satish Nampally, Co-Founder & Head - India Sales & Operations, Byndr.com. He says: “Education space in India presents a huge opportunity, primarily

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because it is largely unstructured. With approximately 131 million mobiles in the country, we believe EdTech companies with great mobile tech can build something engaging which will be used by teacher and students alike”. Meanwhile, state governments are also giving a boost to the adoption of technology in schools. Edureach, a division of Educomp, has partnered with 16 state governments and more than 30 education departments and boards in the country, covering over 36,000 government schools and reaching out to more than 10.60 million students. “Edureach leads the market with 27% of the total schools where ICT projects have been implemented,” says Soumya Kanti, president of Edureach. “We are looking [to add] 3,000 more schools this fiscal year and 20,000 to 25,000 additional schools in the next five years.” As of now, Edureach has created digital learning content in more than 14 regional languages for these projects. “The task has not been an easy one,” admits Anshul Sonak, president of CORE Education Technology. “There are several logistical issues. Delivery of equipment to rural areas is a big challenge in itself…. There is lack of basic infrastructure — either there are no classrooms or there are ones with no windows…. Some schools don’t even have toilets. Moreover, the power availability in these areas is often poor and we have had to deploy generator sets in many schools.” But despite the challenges, educationists are optimistic. Rahul De, professor of quantitative methods and information systems area at the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore (IIM-B) believes that “ICT can have a huge impact on our education system.” He points out that ICT can result in

increasing the reach [of education] and in keeping the costs low. “With increasing penetration of mobile phones and Internet kiosks, the potential is indeed immense,” he adds. In line with this increasing interest in technology for school education, there has been a rush of education-focused tablet computers in the market. The most high-profile of these has been Aakash.. Aakash project is a part of the ministry’s National Mission on Education through Information & Communication Technology (NME-ICT). It aims to eliminate digital illiteracy by distributing the Aakash tablets to students across India at subsidized rates. While the project itself is mired in delays and controversy, it has generated a lot of awareness and interest among students around the educational tablet. Anand Ekambaram, senior vice-president and head of learning at HCL Infosystems, is in the process of partnering with more than 30 educational

"Surviving a failure can be a tough game especially when the players are young and without any leader to assist them. Everything falls apart and students waste a lot of energy there", says Sandeep Singh, CEO & Founder, Edunuts.com.

institutes across India for MyEdu Tab. “MyEdu Tab has content offline and can be accessed over the cloud. It allows students to learn at their own pace,” Earlier last year, Micromax, a leading Indian handset manufacturer, also launched an edutainment device called Funbook. Micromax has also partnered with Pearson and Everonn to make available relevant content for students. Susha John, director and CEO at Everonn, was upbeat at the launch. “Digital learning facilitated through tablets will revolutionize the educational space Latest entrant in the scenario is a mobile app that allows students to get answers to specific questions whenever they want. This becomes a personalized teaching educational model that could make learning student-led, with teachers being facilitators. Students get to decide what and how they want to learn, understand concepts better using digital aids, analyze their strengths and weaknesses, and have conversations with teachers. Content is engineered for each student. And it's the students who rate their teachers. This is as close you can get to the perfect bottom-up pyramid, if there was any. The millions of students flocking to education-technology startups such as Byju's has drawn the attention of investors. The Bengaluru-based startup employs original content, graphics and videos to explain concepts, making learning contextual and visual. It leverages data to enable students understand what to learn, how to learn and how much to learn. The app has been downloaded by about 5.5 million students in more than 1,400 cities and towns. Byju's is India's most-funded EdTech startup with $125 million (nearly Rs 840 crore) raised since March.

Minimal habit change among school management and parents key to EdTech start-ups : Chintan Bakshi, COO, Startup Oasis Indian K12 education, like the education systems of most countries around the world, is largely a legacy of the British. The British had designed the K12 education system to meet the specific needs of the military-bureaucratic-industrial model that it had starting implementing across the world in the 18th Century to fuel the industrial revolution. Despite the drastic change in the world situation since then, the K12 education system has remained largely unchanged. The inertia of an entire education system, in addition to significant governmental involvement and regulation, makes it very resistant to change from the inside-out. Which is why the hope that new “outsider” startups, building disruptive models using emerging technologies like the low cost Internet, mobile, Internet of Things, machine learning, artificial intelligence etc can bring about the change from the outside. Other factors that have now made the situation more conducive for change are a) the growing realisation among parents for meaningful, holistic and experiential education and b) the new and sometimes unconventional work profiles and job opportunities created by these emerging technologies, which the conventional education system is not designed for. Startups in the education sector need to build their products and services to enable minimal habit change among school management and parents – the two primaries by influencers of educational products and services. Thus, these products and services need to be largely mapped on to existing curriculum, need to strengthen the school teachers and school management, save time and effort for parents and at the same time improving the real learning outcomes.

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FEBRUARY 2017 Vedantu, is another technology platform which connects students and tutors online. Based on data, Vedantu also recently started an 'engagement quotient' for teachers to inform them where they should improve. Nearly all EdTech entrepreneurs have gained from data insights. The three big learnings that have been inculcated into these platforms thanks to the data are: chat-based interactions, video presentations and personalization.

progress in rural education. But with the use of technology mass education can be given and the situation can be changed. To be successful in rural areas, first of all study material needs to be distributed to the students, then online interaction and online videos can be made with teachers. Online teaching creates extended classroom communities for discussions, and virtual classrooms for interaction. There is another option in which class-

Based on the questions students post and attempt to solve, Gradeup builds individual profiles. If a student is good at fractions, the app infers she must be good at ratio and proportions as well. So the app will present her with questions of higher difficulty when attempting ratio and proportions. All these technological advancements have contributed to students getting bolder about what they want to learn, says Narayanan Ramaswamy, headeducation at consultancy firm KPMG India. "Knowledge was earlier confined to classrooms and teachers. â&#x20AC;&#x153;EdTech startups have turned learning on the head from a teacher-centric model to a learner-centric model. I won't be surprised if they become full-blown online varsities," adds Ramaswamy.

FUTURE TECHNOLOGIES Augmented realities Things like Google Glass allow users to see additional information layered over what they see through the lens. Currently, however, access to AR technology for educational purposes is mostly limited to smartphone apps. With AR-enabled wearable devices, students can explore the world without having to hold up a device which could distract from the experience. Virtual field trips are also possible with AR. In other cases, students may be able to see supplementary and interactive information appearing on historical artefacts for them to learn more about its history.

EdTech startups are expected to play a key role in delivering education in India using the Internet to scale and solve the last mile problem. Combined with the availability of cheap smartphones and affordable Internet, they enable people to access quality education, anywhere, any time. Startups are looking to disrupt education using a variety of business models - from platform plays, to online courses, delivered through prerecorded videos and curated content, paired with study materials, online assessments and industry certifications. Other EdTech business models have been built around test preparation, edutainment, and discovery use cases.

EDTECHâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S RURAL SCENARIO Like all other areas, in education scenario also, urban areas are influenced to a greater extent than rural ones and they in turn bring the revolution in learning process to rural areas of India. In India illiteracy is one of the biggest problems. Lack of easy access, lack of teachers, lack of interest, poverty, gender differentiation, lack of infrastructure, common curricula are few of the reasons which are holding back the

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room courses can be recorded in real time and used for teaching the students who cannot attend these classes. This creates an expanded access to education. Rural education needs e-learning technologies. Apart from this audio conferencing and video conferencing are to be made a part of the education system in rural India. Teachers at the schools should be well trained and equipped with gadgets. So teachers should be given printers, laptops, for giving notes and notices to the students.

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FEBRUARY 2017

By using technology the problem of unqualified teachers can also be solved. Public-private partnerships are playing a wonderful role in making rural India tech-savvy and in providing education via technology. NGOs are playing an important role in technology assisted rural education. A not-for-profit organization, Azim Premji Foundation, run by the Wipro group has been working towards this issue since 2001. It is currently helping 2 million children in 16,000 schools from 14 state governments. This foundation works by providing computer-aided learning. Many rural schools across India have received computer-assisted education through the collective efforts of NIIT and government. This has given positive results. Dropout rates have reduced to a great extent through computer-aided education. Edusat provided video education in rural India. Edusat was launched by ISRO. VidyaGyan â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Works with an aim

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to uplift the exceptional rural students from economically disadvantage background. They are given world-class education free of cost at VidyaGyan which is a residential institute and an initiative of the Shiv Nadar Foundation, HCL. Samudaya, under its programme teaches English, social science, science and mathematics to children through technology. It has tremendously reduced the school dropout rates and absenteeism and at the same time improved the level of confidence. One of the hurdles, however, is that rural India is deficit in technology. Along with this rural India severely suffers from a shortage of water, infrastructure, power, health facilities etc. For the success of every technologybased education, infrastructure has to be strong. Discontinuation of electricity is the major problem of all. There is an option for the same. Solar energy is available in abundance that can be used in many cases. Access to education is

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the second major issue. Students have to cover miles for obtaining education. To remedy this more schools are required to be built. Schools should open on the basis of population, and distance. Advantage Technology attracts the rural children. Their wish to attend school increases with the word computer. Even parents show more willingness in this case. Computer education builds up the required confidence and narrows down the gap between urban and rural education. So rural India needs great investment in this section. However, the picture isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t all too glossy as it seems as EdTech companies are failing with as much rapidity as they are taking off and some of the reasons attributed to the same include having lack of understanding of education market, expectations of hyper growth right from the start and lack of patience, not being able to figure out the right revenue models and channels, wrong inter-

3D Printing Engineering students and teachers are prime examples of who could directly benefit from 3D printing technology. The 3D printer produces working mini-models to test out engineering design principles, so students can perfect their design before making an actual prototype. Together with CAD (computer-aided design) modelling software, 3D printing allows these students to experiment freely with their designs without expending considerable costs and time. For instance, the concept of molecular structures and configurations may be hard to grasp, but by printing out physical versions of these structures, this can help students put a form on abstract thought, and aid in better understanding.

Technology plays the role of an enabler in education. Tech and education can form the right mix if the former finds practical applicability in the latter. I, having myself been a teacher for six years, have seen the power that tech can unleash in education, both offline and online. the technology that Vedantu has been employing has been found to accomplish tasks at two fronts: personalisation and democratization. Vamsi Krishna, CEO, Vedantu

Cloud Computing Cloud computing is buzz of the day and will most likely continue to change many aspects of our society, particularly education. In the future classroom, students may just need an electronic device to access all their homework and all other learning resources in the Cloud. This means no more lugging heavy textbooks to school, and having constant access to your reading materials as long as you have an Internet connection. Such convenience will provide students the freedom to work on their projects or homework anytime and anywhere. The digital library is accessible even when the campus library is not. Cloud computing seeks to virtualise the classroom. Schools can now leverage on cloud technology and set up online learning platforms for students to log on and attend classes in a virtual environment.

We need to redefine the way we look at textbooks : Tannistho Ghosh of Manipal Digital Systems Technology is changing the higher education landscape in ways that have not been perceived before. From micro-masters programs delivered through MOOCs that accelerate earning a masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s degree to the use of immersive technologies in classroom, we believe in 2017 we will see some major changes in the way educational institutions impart learning as well as the way students learn. It is the right time we re-looked at the textbook itself and figured out ways to make them engaging, intelligent and smart.

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FEBRUARY 2017 pretation of early traction, and more users vs. more paying customers.

Online Social Networking Numerous universities have already registered themselves with the online virtual world, Second Life to provide students with an online platform to socialize with each other. As a big part of the cloud platform, such social networks allow students to share their ideas freely, while teachers moderate. This is a very empowering notion because it will imbibe learners with a new perception – that learning is a personal responsibility and not that of the teacher’s.

Advantages of Education

TECHNOLOGY Teachers can collaborate to share their ideas and resources online. Students can develop valuable research skills at a young age.

Flexible Displays

Students and teachers have access to an expanse of material.

Note-taking on memo pads is still very much alive during lectures although there may be a shift from paper to laptops, notebooks or tablets. As educational settings become more digitalised future class rooms may have flexible OLED-based displays. Just like regular paper, these displays will be lightweight, flexible and extremely thin. This means we can roll them up into tubes or fold them like newspapers. Paper-Thin Smartphones are the plastic e-papers are not only durable but also provides interactivity. With swipes and taps these flexible paper-thin displays can take over paper-centric industries.

Online learning is now an equally credible. Long-term research indicative of the positives of technology on learning. Educational Technology improves student learning outcomes. Educational apps are very popular with millions of android and iOS device users all over the world. Its wide spread and easily usable, the price of tabs and Smartphone is coming down significantly over the years and mobile internet is becoming very cheap . The cost of printing and physically distributing textbooks to every nook and corner of a country like India is a major constraint on universal access to education. It is much cheaper and cost effective to give selective access to chapters in a textbook through online software. Over the past years, a number of studies have shown benefits from the use of technology in education. The role of technology in education is vital, and the question is no longer if technology enhances learning, but rather how do we improve our use of technology to enhance learning?

Biometrics Eye Tracking One technology that’s been gaining recognition is biometrics. Conventionally biometrics is associated with the security industry, as it uses what is unique to each one of us to authenticate our identity: fingerprints, facial recognition, iris patterns, and voice. In terms of education, some schools are only using fingerprinting to prevent truancy and for borrowing books from their school library.

Not all students are the same. Technology can harmonize learning, and help individualize instruction. Educational technologies are both intriguing and provoking. Technology can boost the quality and quality of a student’s writing and thinking abilities.

However, eye-tracking can be helpful for instance, in providing invaluable feedback for teachers to understand how students absorb and understand the learning content. As a matter of fact, advertising research has been using eye-tracking technology to see how consumers respond to their ads. Similarly, the same form of analysis can be conducted to ascertain course effectiveness or individual learning styles. Mirametrix is using its S2 Eye

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The promise of educational technology is more important in Indian context because India has a massive deficit in access to high quality education at the primary and high school level due to a number of seemingly insurmountable challenges, ranging from geographical distribution to socio-economic condition of the learners who attend a majority of Indian schools. Also, the cost of educating one of the world’s greatest populations has been steadily increasing, and there is expectation that technology may make education affordable for those who are so far unable to benefit from the same.

FEBRUARY 2017 Tracker to assess how students learn by getting details of where they look during online learning sessions. The data may then be integrated with interactive adaptive learning systems in a manner that adjusts the content to best suit each studentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s learning style.

Multi-Touch LCD Screens The next board in classroom is likely to be a giant touchscreen LCD screen which allows a greater amount of interactivity that can generate infinite combinations of images, sounds and videos, just like our smartphones. The major difference with this new "board" and our smart devices is that it will be capable of detecting multiple touch inputs from many students simultaneously.

Game-Based Learning Growing up at a time when the world is connected by the internet, kids

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today seem to have a very short attention spans. This is unsurprising, since their childhood revolves around YouTube, Facebook and smartphones that provide them with on-the-go 24hours updates and the answers to all their queries through Google and Wikipedia. To cater to such a fastpaced generation, schools will eventually abandon traditional teaching methods of rote learning to align themselves with the times. One great way to achieve that is to use what had always been considered as a major distraction to learning â&#x20AC;&#x201C; video games. Another concept adopted by educators does not focus on the gameplay or interactivity; rather, it emphasizes on how learning the game design process can educate students. In Gamestar Mechanic, the idea is to impart students with basic game designing skills (without the complexity of programming) to create their own games and consequently help them develop broad skill sets such as language, systematic thinking, problem-solving (through

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simulation, trial-and-errors, etc), storytelling, art and many more.

Education Beyond the Classroom In the future, education will no longer be restricted to formalized and classes. Using AR, cloud computing, online social networking and adaptive learning systems utilizing eye tracking technology, learning can take place outside the traditional classroom.

CHALLENGES IN USE OF EDTECH IN INDIA Apart from hardware providers, and financing bodies which finance such projects, role of content developers is extremely important for this model to succeed. India has a lack of content creators working on creating multimedia learning material in regional languages although there are a limited number of

content creators in English and Hindi . The new government at the center has been emphasising on e-learning to be introduced in all schools, but the biggest challenge is of sourcing suitable multimedia content which is regularly revised and updated. If a number of high-quality content creators cannot be found to work on study material on a sustainable basis, e-learning will remain only a pipe dream in India. Despite early implementation of technologies in Education system, India still faces teething problems for the new technologies in education like limited access to computer hardware and computer software in education institutes, lack of time in school schedule for projects involving use of technologies, and lack of adequate technical support for education institutes. Besides this, insufficient teacher training opportunities and lack of knowledge about ways to enhance curriculum by integrating technologies do exist. That apart, many ethical questions and issues arise with the use of the latest technologies in education, like what is popularly known as the copy and paste syndrome, distortion of reality, too much trust in the information found, and loss of privacy and profiling. To conclude it can be said that any technology has its own pros and cons and same can be said in this scenario also. The choice is ours. We can use technology in schools to support students who dig deep and create knowledge, or we can continue with business as usual. It is not what technology does to us, but what we do with the technology is what matters. We have to get smart with technology and choose wisely in a way that might benefit all. Technology gives even the quietest student a voice as remarked by Jerry Blumengarten, the famous Cybrary Man from New York school system. In the existing scenario, technology will not replace teachers, but it will be teachers who know technology will replace those who don't. The way the world is being technology-driven now, it could be sort of living Steve Jobs’ vision when he remarked, “Let’s go invent tomorrow instead of worrying about yesterday". Yes kids love technology but they also love Lego, scented markers, books, mud and technology. It's all in the balance. Quoting Bill Gates, “Technology is a tool in terms of getting kids to work together and motivate them. Teachers are the most important key in them”.

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JANUARY 2017

The school of the future has opened in

FINLAND

Finnish school education system is considered as the best in the world, and is evolving further. Here are the schools of future that children simply love to be in!

hild psychologists have long argued that changing the approach we take to education would help many children learn to love school rather than hate it. We’ve all heard preschoolers talk about how they can’t wait to sit at their school desk and run to their next lesson with their rucksack over their shoulder. In fact, we probably remember that feeling of excitement ourselves the first time we went. But right from the first days of school, many children feel a huge sense of disappointment with what they encounter. At the Saunalahti school in the city of Espoo, Finland, they’ve found a brilliant way to overcome this problem. Starting just with the school building itself, you’d look at it and never think it was a school. Instead, it’s more a like modern art museum — wonderfully light and airy. Experts from VERSTAS Architects made sure they moved well away from the typical dour design for a public school which we all can’t stand:

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The school’s open spaces have been carefully connected up with the internal hallways and areas provided to each age group. At the same time, all areas of the school form part of a connected whole. The designers believe that any fence or barrier will just encourage the children to rebel against restrictions; therefore, the whole place is open. There are video cameras, but the security measures in general are unobtrusive.

Child psychologists have long argued that changing the approach we take to education would help many children learn to love school rather than hate it. We’ve all heard pre-schoolers talk about how they can’t wait to sit at their school desk and run to their next lesson with their rucksack over their shoulder. In fact, we probably remember that feeling of excitement ourselves the first time we went. But right from the first days of school, many children feel a huge sense of disappointment with what they encounter

The school’s large windows facing onto the street give the sense of a connection with the outside world. Places for the children to sit are located right by the windows, so the children don’t feel locked behind four walls.

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JANUARY 2017 The pupils are allowed to move around the classroom on their miniature office chairs (remember how much your teachers used to tell you off for that?) If they want, they can lie on a sofa with a computer placed on a stool in front of them. Laptop computers, in fact, are this school’s version of the school blackboard. Most of the children’s lessons are built around the concept of team projects

The cafeteria is where both students and teachers meet as part of the learning process. There’s also a stage there — the dining hall doubles as a useful venue for performances, meetings and celebrations

Source: The Bright Side

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JANUARY 2017 The school’s open areas are specially designed to give the children space to walk around. It’s divided into different areas for primary and secondary school pupils

Across its 10,500 square metres, there’s a primary school, a secondary school, a kindergarten, a youth club, theatre, cafeteria, library, gym and many other things. Teaching takes place in a relaxed atmosphere: children are allowed to sit where and in whatever position they want, and discussion between them in class is even encouraged.

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DECEMBER 2016

Schooled with

CARE

What do you call a gurdwara that doubles up as an orphanage? A home, a school? ScooNews visits one and comes away impressed

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Hridya Narang hridya@scoonews.com

e go places… get amused at times and then we forget. But as a writer, I enjoy the luxury of penning down what leaves a mark on me and hence keeping memories alive forever. This article is one of those experiences, one that I had on my many visits to Gurdwara Nanaksar Thaath, Jaipur.

You may wonder what sort of a story can one get from a gurdwara… a religious one... you guess probably, but no… this is more about children, who live, learn, play and worship here. That kids live here, doesn’t that sound fascinating to you? Well! I have been visiting this gurdwara on Amber road for a while and every time I have visited, seeing young kurta pyjama-clad boys taking Gurbani lessons, I wondered… where did they come from? Who are they? Why are they here? But my thirst for these questions isn’t quenched until I meet Jaswant Singh ji, manager and caretaker of these boys. Jaswant Singh ji, who is also called ustad ji, not only briefs me about the life of these youngsters but also takes me down to the hall where they sit practising the harmonium, reading the Gurbani and playing the tabla, or eat-

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ing their simple langar breakfast of dal and roti. Replying to my hundred and one questions, Jaswant Singh ji tells me that though these kids are from various parts of the country most of them are from Alwar. While some of them are orphans, others are from extremely poor Sikh families who cannot afford raising them. The gurdwara, with help from followers and Baba Sukhdev Singh ji Bucho Kalan Wale takes care of them and their basic necessities, education and also vocational training in different areas so as to help them learn a trade and make a self-sufficient life for themselves. The school, now till class 10, has been operational since 2008 and has earlier, when it did not

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have class 10, supported kids to take board exams privately. What surprises me the most is that the gurdwara has also supported a few of the boys to help them complete their engineering degree. Wow! And thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not all, they are also taken for visits to other gurdwara across the country. Followers bring them gifts on special occasions and festivals and the gurdwara organizes competitions for them and winners are awarded with prizes. Jaswant Singh ji gets me to talk to two of the boys, Ranjeet Singh and Gurpreet Singh, and believe me, I am in complete awe when they tell me of their daily routine. The older boys,

August 2017

they say, wake up every morning at 3.30 to do their path (reading) of Gurbani and Nitnem. The younger ones awake at 5.00am to join them for kirtan at 5.30. Their routine appears tough to me but then the kids go on to tell me, gleefully, about their fun factorâ&#x20AC;Ś football, volleyball, kabaddi, cricket.... I am amazed once again. And then, they are trained in playing the tabla and harmonium. Who knows they may make a career in music tomorrow or turn granthis. Coming back to my questions, well, almost all have been answered. There is still one I am unable to get an answer for though. Should the kids call this place an orphanage? A school? Gurdwara? Or home?

AUGUST 2016

Learn the

TECH, TEACHER! To teach better

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Meenakshi Uberoi is passionate about coaching, teaching and learning. She designs curriculum and trains educators through her organization De Pedagogics to equip and assist them in creating innovative, challenging and enriching classroom environments. She is also a certified Microsoft Innovative Educator Master Trainer.

Meenakshi Uberoi writeback@scoonews.com

When technology has exploded on the education scene globally, it makes sense if Indian educators leverage it to the hilt to enhance learning... after all, it is the biggest enabler there is

echnology is all around us, from the time we wake up in the morning to the time we sleep, we use technology in ways that we may not even realize. Every day, technology becomes more deeply ingrained in our lives, and our classrooms are no different. In classrooms too, we use technology as an enabler, as a timesaving tool, and to work more effectively and efficiently.

These are exciting times for educators who have been looking to transform the way we teach and learn. It is the ideal time to seize the opportunity to bring excitement into teaching and learning, especially to engage the disengaged students. Much has been said about 21st century skills for students but are the educators equipped enough

to prepare students for the century that we are living in? If we commit to a vision of 21st century knowledge and skills for all students, it is critical that educators master the competencies that ensure positive learning outcomes for students. Today’s life and work environments require far more than thinking skills and content knowledge. Cultivating the ability to cope with these changes in our students, the educators need to establish a vibrant vision for rethinking pedagogy, modifying methods of teaching to suit the needs of the learners

TECH CAN BE YOUR BEST PAL. EMBRACE IT Technology, I think, is a teacher’s best friend — it’s an enabler, a timesaver, it aids collaboration and builds connections. Technology tools and apps are

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making learning engaging, interesting and empowering. Let the learners be in the driving seat. Learning, I believe, is something that happens to one and cannot be imposed on anyone. So, even if I, as a teacher, explain a concept to my students I can only make them aware of it and the students will learn only when they explore it on their own. This explo-

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ration will rely heavily on how the teacher has introduced the subject. Was it interesting enough to explore further? Did it leave the students with some unanswered questions? Did it intrigue them enough to challenge what they were told? Todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s student is interested in learning by doing, learning by self-discov-

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ery and developing new understanding. What comes to a teacherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s aid to create this environment is technology! Teachers must think of impactful ways of introducing a new concept to ensure they have a lasting influence. They can begin by using a video to introduce a concept. You may think, teachers have used YouTube videos or PowerPoint presentations for years

now to introduce a concept and that they have been used as a tool by the students too, so where’s the excitement? It is here that we, as educators, must look for the missing link — have we done enough to open the students’ mind towards learning? Do they have the knowledge they are seeking from the presentation? Are they ready to gain from the experience? No? Well,

this is where tech comes in handy. Try this.

ALLOW STUDENTS TO EXPLORE THE CONCEPT Let us say, a class of 10-11-year-olds is about to learn about photosynthesis. So this is what you must do as an

informed, edtech savvy teacher, ask your students to share their prior knowledge about the topic. Let them explore meaning of the word, the terms related to the topic, pen down questions that come to their mind, recall if they’ve heard of this term anywhere before this — in short, get their minds working in the direction you want so that they are hungry to

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AUGUST 2016 know more. Once the ground is prepared, they are ready to learn, they will absorb more from the learning experience. Why? Because they are now seeking answers to the questions playing around in their mind.

Bringing social media into the classroom, therefore, is sure to instantly grab their attention. Use it to elicit responses to compelling questions and engage students outside of class time. Give your students a platform to voice their thoughts.

CLASSROOM AS A COLLABORATIVE SPACE

As for technology, use Padlet to post questions, videos, and prompts; or create a WhatsApp or Yammer class group. You can use Sway for digital storytelling or Plickers for polling, whichever you find more accessible and easier for your students to use. Post a question for them to answer or to create a mind-map about the concept or simply post comments about what they already know about the topic. These digital media can help create powerful collaborative spaces for learning to happen. We (students and teachers) are big-time digital consumers, but are yet to take the next step to becoming digital contributors. Many tools and apps, available to us today, allow us to create all kinds of awesome digital content. Students and teachers can create digital content using the following software — presentations using PowerPoint, OfficeMix, PowToon interactive digital posters using Microsoft Publisher, eBooks using OneNote, videos using YouTube/Yammer/Twitter or OneDrive, blogs using Wordpress, Glossi, Sway and do so, so much more. You can get your students to make a short film, run an ongoing class website that features student work and opinions and lots more. Embrace social media — don’t be shy or scared of it. Today’s students consume digital information from social media as they easily as drinking water. In any case, they are already engrossed in social media outside of class; they check out Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and so many more digital spaces the moment they reach home!

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Today, with a single laptop, a webcam, a projector, and an Internet connection, a teacher can broadcast and begin collaboration with any other classroom. Collaborative learning spaces empower students to work with each other and work in a non-threatening environment to share their knowledge as they understand that they are not being assessed but are being encouraged to voice their thoughts and share their knowledge. It has been observed that even the quietest of the students begin to contribute as they are not being compelled to contribute but can choose to share once comfortable. Though there cannot be a single universal blueprint for designing a collaborative learning space, teachers can refer to lesson plans available on professional learning networks like Microsoft Educator Network or Edmodo and learn from other’s experience to design a learning experience for their own students. These are only two of the numerous networks that are available for teachers to explore. In addition to this, however, the teachers must use social media for professional learning. There are numerous groups on all social media like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, WhatsApp and Yammer to choose from depending on the educator’s area of interest. Yet another tool that is making waves in classrooms across the world is Skype in the Classroom. Teachers can use the goal of global collaboration to inspire classroom design that allows for connected sharing and learning. Opportunities for networked and international collaborations are bringing both the world to the classroom and classrooms to the world. Teachers have been using Skype to bring in guest lecturers, experts, students, and virtual field trips into the classroom to open a new world of learning for their students. Nothing breaks up the monotony of “one voice in the classroom” like an enthusiastic subject matter expert from another school or country or a room full of students from another

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continent! If a picture raises a thousand thoughts, imagine how many thoughts a video spring up.

TEACH THEM THE WAY THEY WANT TO LEARN If students do not learn the way we teach or are not willing to learn when we teach, we must teach the way they learn best and learn when they are ready. Not only does this increase access to relevant data, it helps to stimulate the mind — the extended time often required to understand a concept, and the visible, tangible results further reinforce learning. Whether they are online or offline, using a tablet, phone or PC, students need to be able to complete their work anytime and anywhere. OneNote is one of the most powerful collaborative timesaving tools that can be used very effectively for projectbased learning. Teachers agree that when students apply what they are learning to projects based on real life scenarios, the topics they are learning take on a deeper and more meaningful significance. Using OneNote, the teachers can add supporting data in the content library of the notebook for students to access offline to gain understanding as they carry out their research on the said topic. The teachers can add PowerPoint presentations to this notebook for students to access the data anytime, anywhere and on any device. This is of utmost importance for revisiting and revising concepts just before examinations when students are looking for easily understandable forms of learning. Using technology in the classroom, therefore, can help combat the ‘lecture style’ system of education, which does cater to a variety of learning processes. Teachers are changing their classroom practices to help students be successful both in and out of the classroom. Most importantly, educators must understand that technology should never be used in teaching for its own sake. It should be used to meet specific learning objectives and outcomes. Teachers must begin to learn using technology effectively in classroom by teaching with technology not teaching the technology.

JULY 2016

Hanan al Hroub, who recently won the prestigious $1 million Global Teacher Prize, tells ScooNews about her teaching philosophy in war-torn Palestine and what drives her back to the classroom, every day...

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My name is

Hanan. It means affection Juhi Shah juhi@scoonews.com

ife has come full circle for Hanan al Hroub, 43, since she won what is called the Nobel for teaching. It is three months now that she beat nine teachers from the US, UK, Japan, Australia, Finland, Pakistan and India out of 8,000 candidates to bag the prestigious award from the Varkey Foundation. Three months of ministry conferences, teacher meetings and teacher training programmes later, this Palestinian educator is happy to be back among her pupils—aged six to 10—at the Samiha Khalil school in alBireh, just outside Ramallah. Ramallah, where violence is endemic and children its worst victims.

“The environment outside the classroom is violent. Inside I provide peace, harmony and security,” Hanan told The Guardian newspaper. She cannot

control the environment outside, she says, but she can influence the child. Which she does through a special teaching approach that she has shared in her book We Play We Learn. To counter the high level of violence prevalent in Palestinian schools, she creates a relationship of trust and affection through honesty and respect for her students. Her methodology puts a special focus on group work, literacy and rewarding desirable behaviour. Her key message for students and teachers alike is that the Palestinian people lost their country because of their ignorance and can reclaim it through education and learning. She tells of her teaching philosophy in a wide-ranging chat with ScooNews, a philosophy that she worked hard at developing, overcoming her own devastating trauma of seeing her husband and daughters being shot to become a primary school teacher.

Many congratulations, Hanan, on winning the Global Teacher prize! You are an inspiration to teachers around the world. Three months on, how does one million dollars change Hanan al Hroub’s life? When I stood on the stage at the Global Education and Skills Forum in Dubai back in March I was amazed when the Pope announced my name as the winner. I was, of course, very happy indeed. I was proud to be a female Palestinian teacher standing on that stage in front of the world. I still can’t believe it—hearing him say my name as the winner. I respect him a lot, and it’s a big prize and I’m very proud of it. For me, it shows that the world recognizes, believes in and respects this kind of approach to education. It shows Palestinian teachers can be creative, face challenges and compete with the best in the world, despite our circumstances. I will use the prize money to set up a nonprofit organization to support teachers with their own methodologies in education, to motivate teachers to use their initiative and creativity. I also want to encour-

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JULY 2016 age school students, who show academic potential, to choose the teaching profession by providing scholarships for them. In Palestine, in particular, the majority of very academic students currently choose professions like medicine, engineering, pharmacy and law. I also plan to complete my MA and PhD and fund my children to complete their university studies; some of them have completed their undergraduate studies while others are still studying at the undergraduate level. You overcame personal trauma to take up teaching in a conflict zone. Why? My decision to choose teaching was because a family member was shot in the shoulder while driving witnessed by my children when they were coming home from school. ?It was a watershed in my academic career and life for various reasons. ?Firstly, I saw the extreme fear experienced by my children, and its repercussions on their wellbeing and psychology, manifested in a sharp drop in their academic achievement and behavioural performance. Afterwards, they lacked confidence, became withdrawn and they were afraid to go to school for a while. The teachers weren’t trained to help children deal with trauma. So we decided to treat and teach the children at home, and made headway: the results were positive as they managed to complete their studies and do well academically. Their confidence and sociability returned gradually over time as well. Many children are, directly or indirectly, exposed to violence need special care at the early stage of their school education. Because of this, I decided to go into primary school education to become a teacher who could help children who are experiencing this kind of trauma at public schools. ? Most teachers in India would not be able to even imagine the challenges you face daily as a teacher in Palestine... We are living in a very difficult situation as we are occupied, and it really affects the educational process. Therefore our education mission has become more and more complicated. We can see the suffering in our students’ eyes every day. This suffering comes from the harassment that we face every day against international principals, morals and laws. This suffering gets into the classrooms and leads to frustration. The atmosphere is not normal likes other classrooms around the world. Education has a key role. The teacher should create, like an artist, an environment that frees the child and his or her imagination from conflict and helps him or her to shape it in a loving and beautiful way. We want our children to live by love and peace like other children around the world. Does being a woman make it tougher? During my school studies, education was for all and the enrolment of girls was relatively good. But for higher education, the girls’ enrolment was less, for different reasons, including the prevailing political and economic situation. There was the difficul-

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ty of access to universities and the remnants of the phenomena of early marriage, which were most keenly felt in the remote villages. Due to those reasons they had the lowest rate of admission to universities. Nowadays, the proportion of female students in universities is around 58%. My brothers are all well educated, one in business administration, the second is an accountant, the third is a journalist and the rest of them finished their high school and headed to work in business. My three sisters are teachers: the first is an elementary education teacher, the second a history teacher and the third an art teacher. How does a teacher keep all that daily violence out of the schoolroom? What strategies do you employ, Hanan? From my first day as a teacher I promoted a ‘no to violence’ slogan, and pursued a methodology to realize this by adopting the ‘we play and learn’ slogan, that works together with this. This produced positive outcomes including eliminating aggression in the classroom and promoting dialogue and co-operation. This has spread to other classrooms and the children’s families. The ‘we play and learn’ method helps weed out negative behaviour in children, encourages a robust motivation within them which enhances their academic achievement. It has reduced ego and displays of selfishness. It has instead cultivated a spirit of collaboration and leadership. The slogan has also cemented the concept of democracy with children by fostering an acceptance of others’ opinions. Teamwork is encouraged and children learn to express themselves. We get them to take on leadership roles. All children like different things and have different strengths. Some excel at reading, maths, composition and others may have a real talent for painting or singing. Exploring these subjects with them and developing their abilities in these pursuits, gives students the opportunity to find the right answers, both academically and for themselves as people. In this way they develop an ingrained belief that dialogue and listening to others’ opinions can definitely lead to better outcomes, rather than just being selfopinionated all the time. We train students to overcome their shyness by involving them in activities such as the school radio station. They are introduced to this first in groups and then in individual activities, which include producing plays, poetry and homilies. From a starting point of two slogans, so much has been achieved and I

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am proud of all the results and the effect it has had on the children. What would you like to say to teachers working with the dispossessed? I believe teaching is the most noble and important of professions. It needs to be recognized and supported because it shapes the next generation to inherit our world. They are our future and supporting their growth is the most important and precious investment of all. So I would like to take this opportunity to ask—with all teachers around the world—that all nations work together to make this a year of no violence. We, just like you, seed the hope inside our students and teach them that there is a better tomorrow, as the late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darweeh said “We have on this earth what makes life worth living.” On a more personal note, what are your own memories of schooling in a refugee camp? I lived a very hard childhood. Even now, I cannot forget it. I grew up in the Dheisheh Palestinian refugee camp in Bethlehem, with deprivation all around. Yet the people there developed a great spirit of cooperation and supported each other. ?My parents, who had six sons and four daughters, lived in harsh economic conditions. Living in Bethlehem, famous for its Christian community and home of the Church of the Nativity, we were exposed to cultures and people visiting from many nations. Tourists who came to Bethlehem encountered us an affectionate and loving people who cared for each other. There was no dissent among us on any religious or race grounds. Finally, who is that one teacher that inspired you? In 1979, I was a student in grade 2. Our new teacher introduced herself by saying: “my name is Julia from Bethlehem, the cradle of Christ. And you?” As we introduced ourselves, she explained the meaning of our names in a way that made us feel privileged in life. She won our hearts from the outset through her overwhelming tenderness. I could not wait for the next day to see her again.? She was the source of my inspiration and every time I looked at her, I said to myself: I will become like you one day.? Many years later when I became a teacher and set foot in the classroom for the first time, I too introduced myself by saying “my name is Hanan, which means affection”, and asked the students about their names, explaining their meanings. Julia’s example was one of the main reasons that motivated me to be a teacher. She inspired me to become a model to be followed and to achieve something in this profession.

MAY 2016

ON THE BOAT...

TO HOPE Childhood is a magical time, and these innovative architects across three continents decided nothing, not even the lack of land or roads, should keep children away from school

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MAY 2016 “I saw dolphins on my way to school this morning. My village is very pretty with lots of green trees and small ponds, and it’s surrounded by water,” says a girl student of a BRAC floating school

Colourful classroom: This is the scene in a BRAC-run floating school

Bangladesh Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha, founded by architect Mohammed Rezwan in 1998, took up the challenge to make schools reach children, instead of making children reach school, with the first boat going afloat in 2003. Every day, a boat starts off as a bus to collect the students and when all the students are aboard, it becomes a schoolroom. Each boat is solar powered and has an internet-connected computer system to make education more interactive and also to keep the children updated on the latest developments across the world. When he built the first boat, Rezwan sourced wood from native shala trees and iron from local vendors, hiring villagers to turn flat-bottomed local boats into 55-foot long monsoon-resistant school boats. Now Shidhulai has over 110 boats, whose design has been replicated in parts of the Philippines, Nigeria, Gambia, Pakistan, Vietnam and Cambodia, according to Mashable India. Not just that, the project resonates with 670 similar BRAC (Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee) floating schools across the country, under a programme that includes training for boat manufacturing, teachers, parents, teaching and creating management communities. These floating schools have the potential to help

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Innovative classroom: Why shouldn’t imagination soar then? others whose lives have been uprooted by increasingly violent monsoons, Rezwan believes. Besides, they are also a means to sensitize communities to education, discrimination and unequal educational opportunities for women. Now “girls are taking full advantage of the education that the floating schools bring right to their doorstep-allaying the concerns of their parents and guardians,” says Rezwan.

MAY 2016

The bottomline: Life jackets may part of the uniform here, but the kids get to learn and that’s the important thing.

Cambodia

old teacher, Hem Duong Chanden. Making it easier for the teachers too, the schools have residential facilities for them.

Cambodia is flooded round the year more often than not, and hence the Cambodian government, along with NGOs like BRAC, has helped build several schools on water in the country. These schools are built of water-resistant bamboo, with students reaching them by boat or bamboo bridges partially submerged in water. Part of such floating schools are small mobile libraries, tethered close by. The schools here are held in shifts, so as to accommodate maximum number of students. Interestingly, classes have students of multiple ages; a class can have a seven-year-old student as well as a 14YO. “I like it here. This is where I am from and I like the fresh air. I want to share my knowledge with the children from this area. Therefore I volunteered to teach here, even though it is a remote place where nobody wants to go,” says a 20-year-

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“This is where I am from & I want to share my knowledge with children. Therefore I volunteered to teach here, even though it is remote,” says 20YO Hem Duong Chanden

Argentina Even though Argentina is far more developed than the other countries, parts of it reel under the destruction wrought by severe rains and floods. Tigre Island’s La Concepcion School in the Parana river delta, running in the chapel for lack of funds, was identified by the Grand Circle Foundation when it took on the task of rebuilding parts of the school after the 2005 floods. Considering the way the island was submerged under river water, the Foundation decided to build three classrooms on stilts. When the island was flooded in 2010, these three floating classrooms were the only ones to be spared destruction. Now, as and when the meteorological department predicts bad weather, the school shifts to these floating classrooms.

Small carbon footprint: Airy schoolrooms are the perfect answer to power-scarce Nigeria.

Nigeria “Every child deserves an education wherever they are. We are on water and that doesn’t mean that we can’t go to school. We have to.” These are the hopeful words of Shemede Noah, headmaster of the only school in the slums of Makoko, Lagos lagoon. Hope! That is what this floating school is for the slum dwellers. Fighting poverty and water, Makoko slums are the Venice of Africa, with a difference, of course. With

more waterways than roads, boats are the basic commute of residents here. And even as they fear eviction from their watery slum dwelling, they hope to see their younger generation educated. “I was born and brought up here so I know how the people suffer, I feel their pain, I feel their cry and I also know their happiness,” says a student better known as Big Babba, “...If there are more schools, I believe there is going to be changes in the community.” Functional since 2013, this three-storey

school, this brainchild of architect Kunle Adeyemi, founder and principal, is made up of wood and plastic barrels to keep it afloat. The school, which today is the largest building of the slum, has 47 students. The pyramid-shaped solar-powered school features a playground on the ground floor, main classroom on the first, and an additional open-air smaller classroom on the second; it is very well-ventilated and has a rainwater catchment system. The success Makoko Floating School has tasted has now empowered the team to expand the project to a few more similar boats.

Architectural marvel: Makoko slum school under construction.

PV cells Ventilated roof Natural ventilation Roof terrace Louvres for shade Classroom Local building materials

Floatation platform

August 2017

Green and open space

Water line

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APRIL 2016

Mission graduation

Small towns, firang dreams Is it high cut-offs? Quotas? Or, is it the middle-class ‘aspirational’ thing to do now? Why are more and more18YO chucking Indian colleges to study abroad, once the preserve of graduates? ScooNews gets interesting answers as the new batch of undergrads takes wings overseas in July

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Team ScooNews

writeback@scoonews.com

hitraang Murdia, from Udaipur, Rajasthan, topped All-India IIT-Advanced in 2014. A year at IIT Bombay later he quit his B-Tech in computer science. Criticism followed, including from his friends—’You’re a kid,’ ‘You don’t know how to take important life decisions,’ ‘You’ll be earning in lakhs after engineering from IIT’. “My passion lay in physics. I wanted to do research, probably in quantum theory,” Chitraang tells ScooNews via email. Soon, he headed to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), on full scholarship, to pursue his first love. Geniuses like Chitraang apart, many young Indians, scholastic achievers or not, are set to fly across the world once school finishes this June. All that lies between them and their dreams of a foreign education are the class 12 boards. While their number cannot be compared with the several lakhs that apply to Indian colleges every year, one lakh students a year on

August 2017

American campuses alone cannot be laughed at either. Indians have always put a high premium on studying in Britain, right from the times of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, when budding lawyers went to the Inns of Court to do their bar at law. But lately the fascination has spread to even our Asian counterparts, and the US, of course. A UNESCO report of 2012 (the latest figures available) quoted as many as 1,89,472 Indian students studying abroad, however, industry experts suggested that 2.5-3 lakh students travel abroad every year to study. The US alone entertained 103,000 students in the academic year 2013-14, more than double the number of students 15 years ago, as per The Economic Times. So, after all these years of independence, are we still not free of colonialism? Or, do we find studying abroad more lucrative? Doesn’t India offer good enough education? Why are even top institutions unable to hold back Indian undergrads? Why are we

Have wings, will fly: (from L-R) Shashank Gadia, Nimesh Sagar Goel, Aditya Badaya, Eve Jain, Roshni Bahri & Madhav Juneja. still not inviting foreign students to study their choice of subjects here, even though we offer quotas to them? (Did we hear ‘quotas’ somewhere?) Robin Dube, of Erudite Architects, Jaipur does not expect the trend to reverse any time soon. “There is no looking back, not till we have a good, stabilized admission procedure in India too.” And this is not just a metropolitan fad, he pointed out. Himself based in a tier-2 city, he finds a growing number of students from Kota, Jharkhand, and northeast India seeking admission in undergrad courses abroad.

Communications, Narsee Monjee, or the National Law School of India University, have the highest cut-offs, so high that it becomes a struggle for even highly performing students to gain entrance. Enough reams have been written on the craziness of the Indian cut-offs to waste much hot air on the subject here. Suffice it to say, it is a major cause for youngsters to look elsewhere.

So, does that mean foreign universities do not have cut-offs? Well, no. But gaining acceptance is not easy. You need to be smart, write an excellent SoP (statement of purpose), have good grades to back you and be prepared to work harder... generally, just show the director of admissions just why they should pick you over hundreds of similar, if not better, applicants from all over the world!

However, this cannot be the only reason. To explore further, we talked to students likely to be heading out of India for college this year, and their parents and teachers. And they all seem mostly in agreement. Apparently, this is one issue that sees no generation gap! Dube cited the admission procedure, which means going under the scanner of reservations and quotas, as the major cause for this shift in India’s smaller towns. And no talk of cut-offs can be complete without a mention of the ‘R’ word. While the country rages under the aggression of ‘me-too’ pro reservationists,

And then, cracking GRE, GMAT, TOEFL, and the like is not easy, right?

NO RESERVATIONS

When Dube said, “Cut-off lists are obscene,” it had Jaipur’s Madhav Juneja, heading to New York University this fall, nodding vigorously. India’s most preferred institutions, the ones that the brighter ones aspire to, like the St Stephen’s, Sri Ram College of Commerce, Lady Shri Ram College, the IITs, Xavier’s Institute of

True, but educators like Suniti Sharma, principal, Maharani Gayatri Devi School (MGD), Jaipur say that with quotas the number of seats open to the general category has fallen to a level that cracking GRE does seem easier than getting through entrance tests, cut-off lists and then reservation. To an 18-year-old, faced with that and then the prospect of Board and competitive exam dates clashing, it becomes just too much. (The entire school ecosystem desires that schools and colleges get on

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Creativity? In Indian colleges? What’s that?

Four Indian girls. Chose to study design in London and Singapore at the undergrad level. Why? Weren’t Indian institutions good enough? Or, was the competition too much? Or, was it because it was the cool thing to do? ScooNews got some interesting responses.

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retical, but generally practical studies are not incorporated in their curriculum. Sahiba: Not really, the universities aren’t managed well. The staff and the authorities are not as involved, there is no discipline from what I hear, and the focus is on written exams rather than hands-on learning, even in art schools. How do you rate ‘creativity’ in Indian institutions? Devna: Sorry, what creativity? Hahaha. No. It is curbed throughout school. I don’t know about universities. Rhea: I think creativity amongst the people in India is at par, if not more with people abroad. The only problem is that they aren’t allowed / pushed further to unlock their potential. Sahiba: 4/10. A lot of potential but not much importance given to it. Do you think the best of Indian institutions can or cannot compete with foreign institutions? Devna: I cannot generalize but the fact that very few institutes hold positions in world ranking speaks for itself. Nirati: Yes they can. Rhea: Of course, they can. Sahiba: Cannot.

Devna & Sahiba

Rhea

Nirati

Why do Indians choose foreign universities for higher studies? For prestige? Or, to avoid the demanding entrance tests? Devna Shah: I chose to go abroad because I felt that my particular skill set would not be appreciated much in India. If you’re a design student, people automatically assume that you are not smart and I didn’t like that. It doesn’t help that I find it difficult to cram information and give exams. Nirati Nayak: I think this varies from person to person. But I think it’s a combination of both. While there are some of the world’s most reputed universities in India fields like engineering, law, medicine, etc, there are many other fields that do not have as many options in India. The few that are there are extremely competitive to even get into. Besides that, many colleges lack the whole co-curricular, all rounded education aspect. It’s only academics. Rhea Bhandari: I believe that many people, including me, chose to study abroad because of the great exposure that we get. Also, the infrastructure

August 2017

and the industry for design are quite advanced here. It is also a matter of prestige. Sahiba Pannu: Better systems and facilities, more exposure, a chance to live in another country and to learn to fend for yourself, are the reasons many of us choose to go abroad. Also, there are too many seats reserved for people who may not even deserve them so the competition is really high. Do you find Indian colleges good in terms of overall development? Devna: Honestly, no. My friends in India who are studying the same course as me are at least a year behind me in the level of their work. The Indian education system is centred around only academics and not the development of other skills such as communication. Also, the kind of independence and responsibility that comes with studying abroad is incomparable to studying in India. Nirati: The top ranked schools, yes. Rhea: I think there are a number of brilliant universities in India, which include practical lessons as well as theo-

Are you comfortable with subjects offered by Indian colleges? Devna: No. The subject selection is so rigid that there is no room left for selfexploration. Nirati: Yes. Rhea: Yes. I just wish more vocational courses were offered too. Sahiba: In school, I wanted to take biology with art, but that was not allowed. We were herded into one field with limited choices and that changed the year after I graduated. But even so, the investment in the creative field is not sufficient in many institutions, which is why they are in no comparison to institutions abroad Do you think Indian students studying abroad do better? Devna: While where you get your education from matters, ultimately it is what you do with that education that matters more. Nirati: Yes. Because you are subjected to a whole new learning atmosphere, new teaching method, and most importantly people from so many different backgrounds, that the amount you learn outside of academics really helps you to broaden your perspective. Rhea: No, I disagree. Sahiba: Not necessarily. They do have more opportunities but it all depends on what you make of what you’ve got; and also being at the right place at the right time. — Team ScooNews

APRIL 2016 In explode mode According to a 2015 report in The Economic Times, up until 2013, only 15% of education consultants’ business came from undergraduates. This number rose to 40% in 2015. In fact, Piyush Agarwal of Abroad Education Consultants said he got almost half his business from students seeking admission in undergraduate schools abroad. Interestingly, most of the undergraduate aspirants were from North India who found it tough to get into the top local colleges. "The aspiring middle class wants to send their children abroad for undergraduate studies, especially in the north of the country, which wasn’t the case until three years ago. In south India, 80% still want to pursue postgraduate studies abroad," said Agarwal. Most undergraduate programmes in soughtafter universities abroad entail spending of about `1 crore over four years. Princeton University, ranked No 1 by US News & World Report, charged $41,820 for tuition in 2014-15.

Madhav Juneja has been offered a seat at NYU, Drexel & Pace Univ

the same page vis-à-vis competitive exam dates but with nearly two dozen education boards does that seem possible?) Yeah, that definitely makes sense. Sharma also pointed out that it is not just the seemingly reduced pressure of the admission procedure abroad but also the flexibility that foreign universities offer that draws the student to apply. A student who reads subject A as her major can shift to subject B in the second year of college and can also change the entire stream of compulsory subjects. This is something that has utterly excited students in the past years luring them to foreign shores. Along with high cutoffs, said Sarthak Suri, an IB student from Jaipur who has been accepted at Indiana’s Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology to train as an electrical engineer, it was the quality of Indian college education that bothered him and the “cramming for exams that our education system makes us do”. Devna Shah, a student of design at LASALLE, College of Art in Singapore, grimaced in agreement. “The Indian education system is centred on only academics and not the development of other skills such as communication. My friends in India who are studying the same course as me are at least a year behind me in the level of their work.” Youngsters understand that depending on textbooks alone won’t help them in the long run. A practical education is what they look for now, missing from the Indian system. India has some top-class institutes with excellent faculty, said Siddhant Rathore, a student at BITS Goa. However, “colleges abroad have better connections to the industry,” and are better equipped to provide better practical exposure. “All that we do in India is study the same old things, many no longer relevant; there’s hardly any syllabus evaluation,” he pointed out. Anmol Mathur, of Jayshree Periwal School, Jaipur has opted for chemical engineering at Georgia Tech, Atlanta. Other than the research facilities, what helped him zero in was that he could indulge in sports there. It is not the Indian education system but the corruption that envelopes it that is the issue, said Anmol’s mother, Deepa Mathur, PhD in sociology and economics.

Ayush of Jayshree Periwal School handles all foreign applications

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Though most of the other students we spoke to begged to differ. Sahiba Pannu, also at LASALLE, was outraged at the state of Indian universities. “The authorities are not as involved, there is no discipline from what I hear, and it focuses more on written exams than hands-on-learning, even in art schools,” she said. Nimesh, who has put his acceptance at Indiana on hold while he awaits more calls for computer

August 2017

What they said

A more flexible college system allows youngsters the freedom to evolve, realize who they really are, what their choices are Manisha Singh, Ex-teacher, Sanskriti School, New Delhi

The US is still the top choice though the trend is gradually seeing a shift to Germany, Italy, Spain, and Hong Kong too. Robin Dube Erudite Architects

science courses, did not even bother applying anywhere in India, just like Devna. Why? Pat came the reply, “Who’d ever go through the long admission process and still not get what you want thanks to the reservation. Shouldn’t I rather focus on where I can get it easier, a place that offers me a better education and lets me explore myself ? If I choose IIT, I start on a path that I must carry on for the next four years, whether I like it or not. In case, I do want to change my course mid-way, I’d have to go through the same rigour. So, why won’t I choose the same path abroad where I would have the chance to explore myself and then if I don’t find it to be my calling, I can easily shift?” Educators and parents give thumbs up to this as a top reason for graduation abroad. Anil Juneja, Madhav’s father, cited Madhav’s foundation year at NYU and then figuring his options. Manisha Singh, who taught at the elitist Sanskriti School till recently and a parent of children studying in the US, agreed, saying that this gave students a lot more and better opportunities. To dissenters, she said, “a more flexible college system allows youngsters the freedom to evolve, realize who they really are, what their choices are.” A valid point. After all, how many Indian engineering graduates really pursue that as a career? The current startup scene is replete with engineers getting into businesses. Chitraang’s case is a prime example. “I have seen students, good in physics, maths, following the herd to pursue computer science

APRIL 2016 Chitraang’s case is a prime example of the rigidity of our college system. “I have seen students, good in physics, maths, following the herd to pursue computer science. Giving them the choice to flip will boost their morale,” he says.

Chitraang Murdia with his supportive parents, Manish and Sonali

or electrical engineering,” he said. “Giving them the choice to flip will boost the morale of those students who wish to pursue their interest in pure science but cannot beca0use of family pressure or money.” Interestingly, teachers are themselves suggesting foreign universities to their students and schools have their own cells for foreign applications, like Jayshree Periwal School. So, have educators themselves lost faith in the Indian system? It’s the “tough competition”, not loss of

faith, reflected Ayush Periwal. “If parents can afford to send their wards abroad, why will we stop them? Colleges abroad offer global exposure, which each student wants.” Schools also need to keep updated with latest trends. Averred Poonam Saxena of Scholars Global School, Haryana, “But why would we discourage them if they desire to go out for their good?” To that Sangeeta Kain, principal of Delhi Public School, Jaipur, added: “There are students from countries lesser developed than India, and some more developed too, coming to India for their education. Why should a student, a young mind, not have a chance to go abroad as long as they are ready to come back?” High cut-offs, quotas, quality are all reason enough for a youngster to leave for

Certainly, this phenomenon is aspirational, though not in the economic sense but culturally, sociologically, definitely.

Sangeeta Kain, principal, DPS, Jaipur

Suniti Sharma, principal, MGD

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‘greener pastures’ (pun intended, bad or not!) but, talking to a cross-section of people, it begins to seem as though there’s another factor at play here, one which most avoid discussing, leave alone admit to. In all the numbers that are seeking foreign shores, is there somewhere a keeping up with the Joneses syndrome at work here? Or, perhaps, a fad? When one sees the background of many of the young applicants-from traditional businesses, for example, not known for placing a premium on education, especially higher education, till a generation back-it certainly begs the question. After all, it does up your social quotient terribly to say at your faux p3 party, ‘Oh, my son is at University of Minnesota’! or ‘My daughter’s doing her family business course at LSE’. Your worth rises, immediately, by several notches. If, after that fancy education, she comes back to open your neighbourhood designer boutique, who cares? Is that a jaundiced view? Perhaps. But worth dwelling upon, if only as a sociological trend bestowing social cachet, no?

August 2017

As for the aspiring middle India of the SEC B towns and cities, it appears to be the same old wine, really, in an exotic bottle— ‘better’ education, better jobs, better spouses, bigger cars, houses.... And funding the high, much higher, costing education out of salaries that barely scratch 20 lakh per annum? Well, that is another story, another day.

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FIRKI

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MOST HELPFUL TEACHERSHELPTEACHERS WEBSITES FOR .SI WWW.THINGIVERSE .COM WWW.LEARNINGLAB .ORG WWW.SWAYAM.GOV.IN. WWW.COMMONSENSE TEACHERS WWW.

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cffering quality, innovative value and assistance to teachers to manage day to day activities, these websites are true teacher’s pets! Teachers are some of the most skilled professionals around. A day in the life of a teacher can vary greatly depending on the subject and grade level in which they teach. They work long hours, utilise their limited resources to innovate curriculum, and do everything they can to make sure their classrooms are fun as well as safe for students. From creating lesson plans and keeping attendance, to behaviour records and communicating with students outside the classroom, the daily routine of a teacher is hectic. Our recommended list of websites offer quality, innovative value and assistance to teachers in managing their day to day activities.

National Geographic The National Geographic Society is a non-profit scientific and educational organization dedicated to exploring our planet, protecting wildlife and habitats, and helping ensure that students in K-12 are geographically literate.National Geographic’s classroom materials are

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designed in a modular system, with activities as the base unit. An activity will fill one class period, while a lesson (a collection of activities) can fill up to a week of class time. Units (collections of lessons) are designed for longer periods of time.

https://www.nationalgeographic.o rg/education/teaching-resources/

Firki.co – The Teacher Training Portal firki.co is a world-class, open source online training portal by Teach For India which focusses on all aspects of the role of a teacher. The portal provides resources, tips and guidance to any educator who wants to learn and is committed to providing the best opportunities for each of their students.Through a blended learning model, Firki focuses on the principles and strategies, which have proven successful in improving teacher competencies in low-resource communities. Through online learning, in-person training, 1-1 coaching and classroom observation and feedback, Firki helps teachers identify their strengths and leverage them to build an effective practice, leading to improved student outcomes. https://firki..co/

Teachers of India Proposed by the National Knowledge

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. - Mahatma Gandhi

Commission in 2008, this portal is an initiative of Azim Premji Foundation and is a platform for teachers, teacher educators and others working in education in India.This website features classroom resources, teacher development resources, and community and discussion forum as well as educators who have made a difference in the lives of their students and the surrounding community. It is available in five languages – English, Hindi, Kannada, Telugu, and Tamil. http://teachersofindia.org

Teacher Tube Teacher Tube’s goal is to provide an online community for sharing instructional videos. It is a website to provide anytime, anywhere professional development with teachers teaching teachers. Teacher Tube was the idea of Adam and Jason Smith, a 14-year veteran educator. Most importantly, Teacher Tube community members are a major part of the evolution of the site. Members are encouraged to not only upload educationally relevant videos, but also to make constructive comments and use the rating system to show appreciation for videos of value to one as an educator or learner. Users also have the ability to preserve the integrity of the site by flagging inappropriate videos. The website is free for everyone. http://www.teachertube.com/

Teachers Help Teachers Teachers Help Teachers is a platform to help teachers understand that in today’s fast paced world, resources can also be bought from another teacher. Every teacher, over a period of their teaching experience, is bound to develop lesson plans, presentations, posters, activities, games, etc. which can be used by fellow teachers through a channel provided to them. THT aims at building this channel by facilitating the process of exchanging ideas and resources.. http://teachershelpteachers.in/

Thingiverse Thingiverse Education provides over a hundred free lessons that make teaching with a 3D printer easier and more effective for a variety of grade levels and subjects. It also provides a community where educators can exchange best practices or remix projects. It helps teachers bring to the fore the tinkering and creative skills of students.

https://www.thingiverse.com/education

The Smithsonian Learning Lab The Smithsonian Learning Lab provides access to digital resources from across the Smithsonian’s 19 museums, 9 major research centres, the National Zoo, and more, which can be used together, for learning. It is a comprehensive digital destination that includes instructional materials, more than a million artworks and photographs, audio and video recordings, articles and blog posts, and webpages, interactive tools for annotating collections with “hotspots,” quizzes, and discussion prompts.

Common Sense Education Common Sense Education provides high-quality digital literacy and citizenship programs to educators and school communities. The focus is to empower students to harness technology for learning and life. The website includes free resources with ratings and reviews of digital tools, a comprehensive K–12 Digital Citizenship Curriculum, ready-made lesson plans, videos, webinars, and more. More than 2,500 ratings and reviews of apps, games, and websites are available on this website, which has been built by teachers, for teachers. There is curated

list of the best tools, tips, tricks, and tutorials to make it easier to integrate technology into your teaching available here. https://www.commonsense.org/ed ucation/

SWAYAM SWAYAM platform is indigenously developed by Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) with the help of Microsoft and would be ultimately capable of hosting 2000 courses and 80000 hours of learning: covering school, under-graduate, post-graduate, engineering, law and other professional courses.All the courses are interactive, prepared by the best teachers in the country and are available, free of cost to the residents in India. More than 1,000 specially chosen faculty and teachers from across the country have participated in preparing these courses. https://swayam.gov.in/

Khan Academy Khan Academy is a non-profit with a mission to provide a free, world-class education to anyone, anywhere. Khan Academy was founded by Salman Khan in 2008, and has a team of more than 130 full-time staff. Their resources cover preschool learning, math, biology, chemistry, physics, economics and finance, history, grammar, and more. https://www.khanacademy.org/

What Teachers Do Every DayMost teachers spend the majority of their time in the classroom or preparing for classroom activities. The amount of time dedicated to other tasks varies by school, but activities outside of the classroom are often described as an integral part of the job.

Here's how teachers describe their time on the job: Activity Header Classroom Preparation Teaching in the Classroom Grading Student Work Administration Personal Attention to Students Coaching/ Extracurriculars Parent Interaction

Public School

Private Private Day School Boarding School

Special Needs School

30%

25%

20%

15%

25%

20%

15%

20%

15%

10%

20%

10%

15%

35%

10%

15%

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ON1E YEAR ON

LIFE SKILLS

Merging Creativity With Literacy

The CLASSROOM of Life Inspiring individuals who have been ‘educated’ the hard way and reached great heights…

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Parvathy Jayakrishnan writeback@scoonews.com

n excellent education is something we think about and prepare to give our children as soon as they are born, sometimes even before they are born! We want them to go to the best schools in the city, and study in premier institutions so that they are not denied the opportunity to expand their knowledge, skills, values and beliefs. Education, however, is not something that is merely acquired by going to the finest schools and scoring good grades. There are a number of other factors that give you an opportunity to learn and expand your interests. For instance, your life experiences can help you hone your skills too. Some are lucky enough to choose and pursue their interests whereas some others are forced to learn from the lemons life gives them. Here’s looking at some of those inspiring individuals who have made tough decisions and taken rough roads to reach great heights, those amazing individuals who have been ‘educated’ the hard way.

The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you. -B.B. King

NANA PATEKAR F

or Vishwanath â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Nanaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Patekar, the journey to becoming an actor was certainly an uphill climb, on a terrain filled with thorns and bushes. He has now been in the film industry for more than 40 years with National and Filmfare awards to his credit but his humble beginnings have made him the actor and the person he is today. Coming from a small village called Murud Janjira, near Alibaug, he loved theatre right from his school days. His father was a businessman and the family lost it all when he was just 13 years old. He was forced to work then and would traverse eight kilometres on foot, painting film posters to earn Rs.35 a month and a meal a day. He believes that the hunger and humiliation he faced at that age taught him so much that he did not have to go to acting school. The responsibility of his family lay on his shoulders and that is what made him stronger and determined to fight hard in life. He came into movies because of actress Smita Patil and he did incredibly well. He is known for his roles in PARINDA, ANGAAR and KRANTIVEER, to name a few. Recognition came in the form of the Padma Shri in 2013 for his dedication in the field of films and arts. Nana upholds sound values and refuses to budge when it comes to breaking them. He rejected a role in the film PURUSH, although he had played the same role in the Marathi play because he was worried that the audience would clap at his entry in a rape scene. Shunning the glitzy lifestyle which he can well afford, he lives simply and has not altered his needs. He still lives in the 750 sq. ft. house that he first bought and passionately works for struggling farmers in Maharashtra, via the NAAM Foundation set up by him.

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LIFE SKILLS

MARY KOM

STEVE JOBS The late Steve Jobs, widely recognised as the man behind the microcomputer revolution, who along with his partner Steve Wozniak, changed the face of technology in the world with the brand Apple. Jobs was abandoned by his biological parents only to be adopted by Paul, a mechanic and Clara Jobs, an accountant. The family moved from San Francisco to Silicon Valley when he was five after Paul got a transfer and this helped Steve Jobs to be surrounded by engineers. Growing up in such a neighbourhood indeed helped him develop his interest in electronics. His father set up his first workbench with tools for him so that he could improve his skills. Jobs also learnt a lot from Heathkits and Larry Lang, the man who made them. Heathkits are electronic kits that came with instructions and pieces that were colour-coded. He also had a teacher in fourth grade, who motivated him to study and push harder knowing that he was intelligent. He believed that a person who incites your curiosity is more important than any machine that tried to do the same. When he was 13 years old, Jobs got an opportunity to intern with Hewlett Packard. He was very thankful for his time growing up and believed that his childhood had a strong role in what he chose to do later in life. Later, he dropped out of Reed College to figure out what he wanted to do. At Apple, the glue that bound together the team was the drive and the dream to make products that were going to change the world. The average age in the company was mid to late twenties and not many had families, so they worked like maniacs to build something unique. He was ousted from his own company in 1985 but he was never embarrassed to talk about his failures. He always believed that new ideas come up only from failures and, true to that he founded NeXT, a computer platform development company that specialised in stateof-the-art computers for higher-education and business markets. In addition, Jobs helped to initiate the development of the visual effects industry and the company Pixar produced the first fully computeranimated film, Toy Story with the help Job’s financial support. Apple merged with NeXT in 1997 and Jobs returned as the CEO of Apple and revived it from bankruptcy. He also worked with chief designer Jonathan Ive to create iMac, iTunes and iTunes Store, Apple Store, iPod, iPhone, App Store, and the iPad, which are to date some of the best-selling gadgets in the market. Destiny was not kind to Jobs as he was diagnosed with pancreatic neuroendocrine tumour in 2003 and he passed away in October 2011 at the age of 56. He is known to have worked till the day he died, giving to the world electronics and innovations that would stay on for many more years. d

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The story of Chungneijang Mery Kom Hmangte or Mary Kom is filled with some extra punches, which makes it worth recounting to young girls like a fairy tale. Hailing from the Kom tribe in Manipur, she set a new standard in amateur boxing without ever competing in professional boxing. From her childhood days, Mary was good at athletics, volleyball and football. She would race her friends back home or run around in the fields. Her parents were farm labourers and she believes her growing years helped toughen her. A high school drop-out, her interest in boxing wasn’t acceptable to her father, a wrestler in his younger days, who was worried that she wouldn't be able to find a groom if her face was hurt playing the sport. Manipuri Dingko Singh’s gold medal in boxing at the 1998 Asian Games is what inspired her to move from athletics to boxing. Kom took a short break from boxing training post marriage and she returned to the sport after giving birth to twins. Her husband Karung Onkholer Kom was fully supportive of her ambitions and she started training again. In 2010, Kom won the gold medal at the Asian Women's Boxing Championship in Kazakhstan, and at the International Boxing Association (amateur) AIBA Women's World Boxing Championship in Barbados, her fifth consecutive gold at the championship. She competed in Barbados in the 48 kg weight category, after AIBA had stopped using the 46 kg class. In the 2010 Asian Games, she competed in the 51 kg class - the lowest in the contest - and won a bronze medal. In 2011, she won gold in the 48 kg class at the Asian Women's Cup in China. London Olympics 2012 was her next target and she was accompanied there by her mother and her husband. Her coach Charles Atkinson could not join her as he did not possess an AIBA 3 star certification. She still did her best and won the bronze medal for our country. She continues to train and hopes to win gold at the next Olympics.

It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense. -Robert G. Ingersoll Alla Rakha Rahman, born A S Dileep Kumar, has revolutionised Indian film music composing a number of hit songs in different genres that have been remade in different languages. When it comes to making music, he is simply genius and there is no denying that. Rahmanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s father was an arranger for composers in Madras. Composers would write tunes and he would arrange the music for them. Rahman assisted his father on the keyboard, but his father passed away when he was just nine years old. His mother ran the house for five years by renting out the musical instruments that they owned. After that, his mother was advised to sell the instruments and live on the interest but she refused saying that her son would need them. Sure enough, his mother identified her sonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s talent and urged him to drop

A R Rahman

back after that. The songs from Roja are still a favourite of people from all generations.

out from XI grade as she was sure that music was the line for him. Rahman was upset to leave school and he even thought that he would earn some money and get back to school. But destiny had different plans for him. His first job of working with composer Ramesh Naidu, as his second keyboard player, is what helped him buy his own instruments, which then became his future.

Rahman has awards pouring in from everywhere in his kitty. He has received a Kalaimamani from the Government of Tamil Nadu for excellence in the field of music, musicalachievement awards from the governments of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh and a Padma Shri from the Government of India. In 2009, he won the Broadcast Film Critics Association Award, the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score, the BAFTA Award for Best Film Music and two Academy Awards (Best Original Score and Best Original Song, the latter shared with Gulzar) at the 81st Academy Awards for his background score for Slumdog Millionaire. He continues to thrill crowds with his musical concerts and talent.

He mastered the keyboard, piano, synthesiser, harmonium and guitar, developing an added fondness for the synthesiser because it combined music and technology. In 1992, director Mani Ratnam engaged him to compose the score and soundtrack for his film, Roja and there was no looking

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ADVERTORIAL

SANFORT Preschool is all about bridging the learning gap that seems to be ever widening in the early learning space. How the brand reached to 21 states and to 2 international locations and has a good alumni base in less than eight years. S. K. Rathor, Founder and Managing Director of SANFORT group, one of the most successful preschool brands reveled the story behind the success of his school brand.

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Describe the need that SANFORT fills in communities. Today’s parents are more concerned than ever about their child’s education. In an increasingly competitive landscape, children need to acquire a multitude of skills to become successful adults; from communication, to coping with stress, to innovation and many others. It is a known fact that the majority of children in India are not ready for school. SANFORT curriculum is designed to bridge the learning gap and prepare children for the life. What is SANFORT doing to set itself apart from the competition? Our learning environment takes a 21st century approach and a process-oriented model. No other school have innovative curriculum like ours. We take effective, time-tested elements of traditional learning, and infuse them with cutting-edge technology and resources. We have a unique Smart Learning System with Touch ‘N’ Learn technology. Though our curriculum is based on the U. K. Concept of preschool education but we have never left our Indian values behind. Everything is designed to be at the teacher’s fingertips; the learning content, student progress, and parent communication are all managed within a mobile application. We are partner to Trinity College, London for English language development at preschool level. What is the reason behind tapping the franchise model for expansion and how has franchising helped you to grow your business?

I strongly believe that Franchising is the most powerful recipe for scalability in the entire business world and it is a winning formula for franchisors and the franchisees both. It is a great way to expand our network as we have people to manage our locations without paying salaries who will work much harder than employees and we can grow the number of locations without tapping much of our own capital because franchisee owns the cost to open and operate the branch. In a franchise model, a lot depends upon your franchise partner what are your criteria to choose the right franchise partner and how well you bond with them? In a franchise model success or failure of a brand depends on the success or failure of the franchisees. So, it is very important to choose right partner, we look into their financial status and social reputation. Their educational background and passion towards the education profession is also very important. Once we chose a partner we give them proper training and inputs to run the business and complete hand holding to make the venture successful. What message you want give to a potential franchisee? We have a brand and strategy that has been proven successful to attract and retain students, as well as excite and engage parents. We have strong branding, strong demographics research, and child-centric curriculum that parents love, which are the key factors, required to establish a successful preschool.

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INSPIRATION

Merging Creativity With Literacy

FOR BETTER & VERSE

Classic inspirational poems guaranteed to enliven the soul Anjana Deepak writeback@scoonews.com

oetry is not just rhymes strung together, it is a symphony of words that have deep meaning, endowed with the power to inspire minds and change lives. Poems are for everyone - man, woman, child, student, teacher, as long as you can find resonance with them. It is said that the pen is mightier than the sword, but the words written are the mightiest of them all. Here is a selection of truly inspirational poems, which have stood the test of time with their wealth of beauty and meaning…A lesson in life that we can learn from, and help teach those in need along the way.

By Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise

MESSAGE

The poem talks about how man must be humble, patient, rational, truthful, dependable, and persevering. Man must have faith in himself when all others doubt him. When what he says is misconstrued, he must be able to stand strong and deal with it. Kipling says that the true measure of a man is his humility and stoicism.

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A well-educated mind will always have more questions than answers. -Helen Keller

Stil Her goal isn’t just to teach knowledge…

Still I rise By Maya Angelou

by filling the box with more parts It’s putting the pieces together… to create a work of art. When asked which subjects she loved to teach,

You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I’ll rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? ’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells Pumping in my living room. Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I’ll rise.

MESSAGE A powerful and empowering poem about struggles faced and how to overcome them. It sends out a message to all those who face hardship, telling them that, no matter what the circumstances, always have hope and cling on to it.

she answered this way and smiled… “It’s not the subjects that matter… It’s all about teaching the CHILD.”

By Paula J. Fox

Heart of a teacher MESSAGE A beautiful poem that talks about the very core of what a teacher really is; how through love and care she helps her students shine. By being patient, as each child is different where some of them might be slow and others need more help, she builds their confidence. She keeps them safe, focuses on their strengths and not their weaknesses, encourages them and gives them their space to become strong and responsible human beings.

rise August 2017

169

INSPIRATION BY WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY

INVICTUS Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.

By William Wordsworth

a character I marvel how Nature could ever find space For so many strange contrasts in one human face: There’s thought and no thought, and there’s paleness and bloom And bustle and sluggishness, pleasure and gloom. There’s weakness, and strength both redundant and vain; Such strength as, if ever affliction and pain Could pierce through a temper that’s soft to disease, Would be rational peace–a philosopher’s ease. MESSAGE The poet describes society and the character of the human race. He talks about the contrasts in human faces, their different moods and personalities. The poem relates to the yin and yang, the good and the bad and how they must all co-exist on this earth. He says that humans are both flawed and beautiful and sometimes flaws add to the beauty. He writes about strengths and weaknesses, how they are opposites, how sometimes too much of strength can destroy things and sometimes there is greater strength in restraint. Life must have a balance of everything. We must not only look for or experience the good; we must go through hardship which helps us learn and that is the beauty of life.

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August 2017

MESSAGE The poet explains that life has its ups and downs and that one must be strong-willed and stay unconquered. Even though we feel that there is no hope and face many hurdles, we must not give up; we must stay strong, keep our chin up and do whatever it takes to overcome it. We must keep faith so that nothing can shatter us and we can face anything that is put in front of us. The poet says that the world is a dark place but he thanks God as our souls cannot be ruled by anyone and is independent, just like our thoughts.

I marvel how Nature could ever find space For so many strange contrasts in one human face: There’s thought and no thought, and there’s paleness and bloom And bustle and sluggishness, pleasure and gloom. By Robert Frost

MENDING WALL There’s weakness, and strength both redundant and vain; Such strength as, if ever affliction and pain Could pierce through a temper that’s soft to disease, Would be rational peace–a philosopher’s ease. MESSAGE There are two views to this poem; that of the narrator and his neighbour. This poem is a representation of what today’s society is all about. It reflects the fact that man-made barriers (the wall) exist between men, groups, and nations based on discrimination of race, caste, creed, gender and religion. The neighbour’s opinion is that it is good to have these walls as it sets limits and rights of each individual. The wall also represents building goodwill and trust between people.