Telangana Social Welfare and Tribal Welfare Residential Education Institutions Society (TSWREIS) will be able to impact the lives of students in rural areas of Telanagana at large, says Dr R S Praveen Kumar, Secretary, Telangana Social Welfare & Tribal Welfare Residential Education Institutions, Government of Telangana, in fireside chat with Sudhakar Rao, Director-Branding, ICFAI Group, during 9th Higher Education and Human Resource Conclave Hyderabad.
What is the inspiration that helps you keep running the mission of catering to the dire educational needs of children hailing from the remote areas of Telangana?
There is an urgent need to include children belonging to the backward sections of the society to the mainstream. It is necessary to make them the part of problem solving exercises.
What inspired you to choose social welfare despite being an IPS officer?
Firstly, during the Telangana agitation I came across incident of several students committing suicide due to lack of education and correct role models in their lives. Secondly, it was due to my mother. One day when I visited our village after becoming an IPS officer, my mother said “should I feel proud as my son is an IPS officer or should I feel ashamed as still most of the persons in his village are either labourers or stone-cutters”. This is when I thought to spread my learning among backward sections of the society.
While enabling students to become globally competent, how your teachers have been managing a work-life balance?
Our teachers enjoy what they do. They find a sense of purpose by contributing to this noble cause. One of the significant things that changed the outlook of our teachers is that the kind of teachers’ training provided to them. We don’t do our teachers’ training programmes within the institutional settings. A significant portion of our teacher’s training happen among the communities. We take them to villages and encourage them to immerse between the communities. It helps them to understand our students’ needs.
A lot of schools are focusing on entrepreneurship to have fresh ideas from students, what steps have been taken by the TSREIS Schools in this regard?
We are focusing on the practical aspect of entrepreneurship. We have established sanitary napkin stores and canteen in our schools where the supplier or the contractor is not a renowned person of these fields. Pass out students of our schools are the suppliers for these stores or canteens. So, this is the one such step to nurture entrepreneurship. We also call renowned industrialists to our schools regularly for interactive sessions with students so that they tend to understand an entrepreneur’s life.
