Dr T Venu Gopal Rao, Academic Director, Fusion International School, Hyderabad

We need to upgrade the Indian curriculum with new ideas for bringing maximum benefit to our younger generation. As India is a land  of contradictions and dichotomies, the education system should be suitable to everyone’s needs and aspirations.
Almost 50 percent of Indians are youngsters, but compared to the Western countries, our education system lags behind. We often  have instances of children feeling bored at school; this could be because education is not being delivered in a proper way. Majority of our schools are teacher-centric, and this makes the children feel that education is being imposed upon them.
There is a need to revolutionise the pedagogy. New ideas in education have to be implemented.
If Eastern educational philosophies are merged with the philosophies from the Western world, then we will be able to carve out a road  for globalised and holistic education. Real education is where students can apply their skills to solve an issue, think laterally, with  horizontal expertise and lateral exposure. Organisations willing to impart education should have a clear motive, vision and mission. A good team work is a necessary part of the vision.

Curriculum development
The curriculum needs to be designed to suit the needs of the students, thus helping them utilise their skills and apply their education and learning in the future. The curriculum must be vibrantly designed and it should appeal to the younger generation of today.
A step-by-step process is a must for integrating the above skills into the curriculum. The content needs to be explained very lucidly  and repeated many times. We need to have a pragmatic way of teaching; incorporation of emails, interactive boards and YouTube will  help students in understanding the concepts with greater clarity.
Giving enough room for higher order thinking skills (HOTS), journal writing, creative writing and interdisciplinary learning needs to be  encouraged.
The schools can also try to indulge the students by having entertaining assemblies, which also foster learning. During the assembly sessions, the students can present their talent through a skit, presentation, poem or song. The students will thus develop  confidence to face the crowd even before sensing stage fear.
Primary school assembly may be segregated from pre-primary assembly. Students of pre-primary can recite rhymes and tell stories in  their assemblies. This will encourage learning by emulation. It will also make way for better bonding between the students.

Implementation
It is important for the schools to take parents along in all their initiatives. The parents must be convinced that this kind of programme  will build up self-esteem, strength in concepts with knowledgebased learning and will lead to the road of success in their lives. It is  important to be communicative with the parents regarding the programmes conducted in the school. Regular parent orientation helps  the parents align themselves with the curriculum and keep abreast of the latest programmes in the school.
A lot of preparation and planning is required from the teachers and senior administration to implement the programme. Continuous  comprehensive evaluation must be implemented in schools, because you cannot evaluate a child’s potential with just marks obtained  in the examination. Group discussion on a question or a topic is compulsory. Teachers have to plan the lessons and elicit answers from  the students on a constructive theory of learning. They should build the concept and add information to what the students have learnt.
Physical education has replaced physical training. Theory and practical lessons have to be conducted by the sports personnel. Both  indoor and outdoor games need to be stressed upon. Curriculum must be designed to allow the students to stay fit, both mentally and  physically. The right kind of balance between height and weight is important. A regular regimen of 3 to 4 minute aerobic lessons is a  must.

Nancy S Nanavaty, Academic Director, Phoenix Greens International School, believes that education shouldn’t be the premium of the people who can afford it

Please tell us about the genesis of Phoenix Greens.
Phoenix Greens was started with the aim to provide an alternate for disillusioned parents. Also, we wanted quality education to reach  every child. Education shouldn’t be the premium of the people who can afford it. Usually that is what is happening. The parents who can afford it send their child to the best of the schools and spend a lot of money. Education should be within the reach of the common  man. The middle-income group is the thickest of all the groups. We wanted to cater to them by giving quality education to their  children. Our fee structure is very competitive. And like they say ‘paisa vasool’, for every penny that the parent pays, we give it back to them.
Education is not just academics; you need to educate the child in everything. It is all-compassing: personality development, leadership skills, presentation skills, how a child presents the work, how well he is groomed – the whole persona has to be taken care of  by the school, not just ABCD. Because even a parent can do that.
But why does a parent say, “How does a school differ from another school?” It’s by bringing this holistic development. Everyone says  that their school provides holistic development, but are we really providing it? What are the measures a school is taking to provide  this holistic development?
Even a nursery class child from our school would be able to take the mic and speak. When we have the parents’ day, all the 300  children of our school are on the stage, and not just as the flower walls, paper flowers or as the trees swaying in the breeze. Everyone  participates.
I also subscribe to the Glenn Doman way of thinking which says that every child is born a genius, he is born with a potential intelligence that was used by Einstein and all the great people. How we utilise this potential genius, how we stimulate the brain, is what is going to make this child an above average, below average or an average child. It is an awesome task for a school.

What are the challenges and opportunities in expansion?
Yes, absolutely till grade 12. We follow the CBSE board because I believe the CBSE is one of the most dynamic boards. We could have  easily started with a Cambridge or the IB or ICSE curriculum, but CBSE is so dynamic, it’s within the reach and in the middle-income  society, there are a lot of transfers. So wherever students go, they will be following the same thing. Our syllabus is CBSE, but our  curriculum is international because we take the best practices and teaching methodologies from all over the world and we incorporate  them in ours.
When you say syllabus, it’s a very narrow one. When you talk about curriculum, it’s a very broad perspective.

What are your views on technology in education?
It’s an absolute must. Even for the simplest of things, technology and education should go hand-in-hand. Unless the child does and  sees something, education is not complete. Rote teaching does not happen now. Our theme changes every month. So when our theme  is, say water, our children go and watch on YouTube what a water cycle is and what the different bodies of water are. Our nursery  children also go to the computer lab.
They only know that is the monitor, this is the keyboard, this is the CPU, this is the hard drive, this is a pen drive and these are the CDs.  Prep 1 and 2 start using the Paint and do a lot of activities. And nowadays, there are a lot of interactive activities. In the third term, the  nursery children would be able to click the mouse to see. There are a lot of interactive sessions, like when they are doing the letters, if  you say ‘A’, there’s a picture of an apple, a bat and a cat. And the child has to click the apple. So technology and education go hand- inhand.

What is your vision for the school in 2020?
Academically excellent, social responsibility, pride in being an Indian: as elaborate as that, that encompasses everything.

Dr K T Mahi, Chairman, Sree Group, Sreenidhi International School and Sreenidhi Institute of Science and Technology, tells how the school is doing its bit for the society

Please tell us how Sreenidhi International School was started.
The genesis lay in the idea of creating something that would endure and make a small contribution to the society. The school was  founded to realise a dream: to create an institution where there is no fear of education in the minds of the students, and where teachers  do not pursue the teaching for any short-sighted gain.

The school has been in operation for a couple of years. Where does it stand now? 
It stands poised, confident, eager to learn, prepared to take greater strides in all directions, and, above all, at peace with itself and  perfectly self-possessed.

What is the biggest challenge of the school today, and what are you doing to address it?
The biggest challenge is to not stopping even for a moment in the journey to improve ourselves and learn new skills. Besides this, there  are three other challenges:
1. Not to allow anything to make us deviate from our vision
2. Never become self-satisfied and rest on our laurels
3. Never forget our duty towards the students and the parents.

How is the school distinctive from other international schools?
We neither believe in competition nor do we compare. Running a school is not like participating in a beauty contest. We have our goal,  vision and responsibility and we are focused on that.

Please share your vision for 2020.
Such visions do not take into account two things: First is the world of change: I do not know what will happen tomorrow. And second is  too great a pre-occupation with the future that makes us neglect the present.
Moreover, a school is always an evolving vision that develops from conversations with parents, students and teachers. For me, 2020  is here and now, and so, we work towards making the school great every moment.

Technology is a tool for steering education towards creative thinking, opines Adilakshmi C, Principal, Oakridge School, in conversation  with Rozelle Laha

Please share with us the school’s initiatives.
Oakridge continues to be in tune with time and we strive to incorporate the techniques useful for the children to have effective  learning. We train our teachers continuously. And the best schools are those that have continuous upgradation of their teachers  through the training processes as they are the facilitators of imparting knowledge in the classrooms.

Why did you shift from a CBSE school to being an International school?
Since the inception of the school, we wanted to have a smart school and make technology an important tool for teaching in the school. The school has the best smart classes, multimedia and computers and equal emphasis is laid on training the teachers in using the technology effectively. The school has seen a shift from blackboards to whiteboards, and the children have access to laptops and tablets.
The assignments are sent to the students in advance and some teachers also do flipped classrooms. The teachers record the lessons  and send them to the children. The children watch the video of the lesson at home and have a fair understanding of the topic when they come to the classroom. Thus, the teaching method changes from teacher-centric to discussion-centric. In the flippedclassroom-style  of learning, the time in class is used for discussions among the children and teachers.
The children are able to connect to other children in the world through Skype. With the availability of the Internet, children are taught  the concept of framing the right questions so that they can search the right information from the Internet.

How do you see the future of school education with the advent of ICT tools?
The most important thing in education is that the children should learn and understand the core content of the lesson. They should  acquire the domain knowledge without any hiccups.
In the near future, the change will happen in the delivery of the knowledge to the children. There are various types of learners in the  class and technology helps them in learning effectively.

How often should technology in e-Learning be upgraded?
Technology needs to be upgraded so that the children get more opportunities to inculcate creative thinking. The children should have confidence and should learn to communicate well. Technology gives them a medium to express themselves and explore the depth of their inquisitiveness. Technology has to be continuously upgraded to keep pace with the requirement.

Please tell us about your teachertraining programmes.
We put a lot of effort in building our faculty. The teachers are always in sync with the latest pedagogy techniques and philosophy of the  school. Thus, they are able to deliver effective learning in the classroom based on these principles. All teachers have to undergo mandatory hours of training on the effective use of technology deployed in the classrooms.

How can we bridge the gap between the government and international schools in terms of technology deployment?
The awareness of computers in CBSE and government schools is rapidly rising as they have also come to realise the importance of using technology in their schools. With the launch of Akash tablets, the deployment of cost-effective solutions in education will come  forth so that everyone can benefit from the use of technology.

“No teacher training programme is customised for any particular institution. If the aspirations of an institution are high, they have to encourage their teachers,” says Seetha Murthy, Principal, Silver Oaks School, Hyderabad, in conversation with Rozelle Laha

Please tell us about special feature of Silver Oaks School?
We, at Silver Oaks, believe that the character of an individual comes first and then comes competence. Today, after seven years, I can  say proudly that all the 2,000 students and 200 teachers we have are very responsible in terms of their approach towards life. In terms of competence, I would not mind if you are weak in a particular subject, but I would want you to be a risk taker and work harder  on in subject.

What made you to make a move towards International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum?
There is a special philosophy behind it. IB concentrates more on a child’s profile; it is child-centric. Also, there has been a phenomenal transformation in the school after that. We did not move to IB to get the international tag.

How have you implemented ICT in your education model?
We do not have very high tech gadgets in the classrooms, but every classroom has a system and Internet access. The teachers use it to  show the world to the children. We do not have textbooks, as there is no prescribed curriculum. We strike a balance between the  curriculum and the methodology. In the classrooms, the teachers and the students form a small group and find out how research in scientific phenomenon works in countries like Australia, Switzerland etc. The monitor is used to stimulate the audio visual sense of the education.

Today’s students are more technologically advanced as compared to the teachers. How can this gap be filled? 
Students have their own websites these days. A lot of them know how to upload videos too. So, there is a lot of gap between the  children and the teachers. It may be a generation gap, but technology has definitely accentuated their learning. We also give time-to- time training to the teachers in a softwareoriented format for teaching in classrooms.

There is a lack of quality teachers’ training programmes in the country. How can the schools address this problem?
You cannot find the best skilled people anywhere in the world, be it a school or any other institution. When we interview a teacher, we only look at his attitude towards learning and his openmindedness.

We should stop complaining that we do not have enough trained teachers. The teacher training colleges that train the teachers to cater  to the present generation are in reality, imparting training only to teach the students of 1980s. There is a lack of teacher training  colleges to make the teachers ready to teach in the present day schools. Schools should train the teachers according to their needs.

The process in India education needs to change to empower the academician to validate everything. Currently, it is the clerks and  bureaucrats who are empowered, opines K S Muralidhar, CEO, Learnsmart India

How do you visualise modern education? What is the way ahead with the help of digital tools?
For many reasons, education in this era can only happen with digital tools. One is the lack of training the teachers. Digitisation of learning is required to learn or assess or learn through assessment.
We learn through assessments. So how do you assess what you have learnt? You learn, but you don’t know how much you have learnt. That’s why our tagline is: ‘Do you know how much you know?’ If I know how much I know, I can take the next step forward.

How can we rectify ourselves through the learning process?
You need to know where you are going wrong at every stage and what the shortfall in the learning mechanism is. The online system that we have developed tells you on the spot the mistake you’ve made and the way forward. So there will be no backlogs.
In the Indian education system, there are many backlogs. For example, if you’ve been taught a chapter, before you understand that  chapter completely, you’re already being taught the third or fourth chapter. The aim of the teachers is to complete the syllabus. There should be no delay or spoon-feeding.

Today, if the teachers are at 1.0, the students have reached 3.0. How do you think this gap can be bridged?
Today’s generation is computer-savvy and much more advanced than the teachers when it comes to technology. But, the teachers who graduated years back will have to change their mindsets and logic to understand the challenges ahead of them.

How has the model you have created resolved the problem of power in India?
Necessity is the mother of invention. We analysed that even the best content and self-analysis reports would be futile if we did not reach to a school. Even today, most of the schools do not have power. We branded our product as 24X7guru.com, aiming at giving  green labs with clean and green energy to schools 24X7. And for students, it’s a full cycle of learning on alternate power.
If you are waiting for power to be generated, it will take about 15-20 years. Solar and wind power are recognised worldwide. We only need to have a standalone system. One kV power is enough for a school with 10 computers and lights. That would need a bare  minimum investment, and can go on for at least 10-15 years.

Please tell us a little more about the model.
In the project, we will have energy efficient computers. The computers that we generally have consume because they consume up to 150 watt, whereas the energy-efficient computers will take only 25 watt. And using LED lights means saving more power. If we don’t  use energy-efficient computers and lights, the energy consumption will go up to at least 5 kV. To generate more power, the capital cost  will increase.

What is the cost of implementation? 
We should be able to generate 1 kV power in `7-8 lakh. This is enough to power at least 4-5 computers, LED lights and fans.

Please tell us about your ongoing pilot projects.
We visited Navodaya School in Gachibowli, Hyderabad, to test the project. It is completely green and has 20 energy-efficient  computers. Today, the school is not paying a single rupee for its power consumption. The government of Assam has also asked us to do  this as a pilot project in 10 schools in the state. If this model is successful, all the panchayats will be connected properly and e-Governance will happen.

Which state governments have you approached for this?
We have approached the government of Andhra Pradesh and they have shown a positive response. They have also sent a proposal to  the government of India for fund sanction. If our project in Assam is successful, the project will be implemented in at least 400  schools.We are approaching other state governments also.

There are e-Labs in the NKN model of exchanging knowledge. What is your opinion on that? 
Technology is moving at a very fast pace and the level of collaborative learning has come up. 24X7guru.com will be on that platform.

EDITORIAL
A Digital Paradigm for Education

GUEST EDITORIAL
Funding Higher Education

CONTRIBUTORY EDITORIAL
Higher Education in AP Up for  Change

INTERVIEW
Implementing ICTs will Make Education System Wholesome
Prof Ramakrishnan Ramaswamy, Vice Chancellor, University of Hyderabad

ODL Makes Learning Flexible
Dr P Prakash, Vice Chancellor, B R Ambedkar Open University

Students Should be Taught Employability Skills
S Sampathy, Deputy CEO, Siva Sivani Institutes

Glocalising India
Sri Krishna, Managing Director, Birla Edutech Ltd

Pre-Schooling Takes a Giant Leap
Priya Krishnan, CEO, Klay Schools

K-12 INTERVIEW
Educating Beyond the Classroom
Kavita C Das, Principal, St John’s High School, Chandigarh

Competence Follows Character Development
Seetha Murthy, Principal, Silver Oaks School, Hyderabad

Technology Enables Effective Learning in the Classroom
Adilakshmi C, Principal, Oakridge School

Colossal Growth Awaits K-12 Space in India
A K Agarwal, Director, DRS Group

Constant Improvement is the Biggest Challenge
Dr K T Mahi, Chairman, Sree Group, Sreenidhi International School

Education is All-Compassing
Nancy S Nanavaty, Academic Director, Phoenix Greens International School

Towards a Holistic Education System
Prashant Jain, Founder Director, Pathways Group of Schools

Preparing Students for Future
A Murali Mukund, Secretary, Jubilee Hills Society & Chairman, Jubilee Hills Public School

Quality Education should be Accessible to All
Anirudh Gupta, CEO, DCM Schools

K-12 GUEST ARTICLE
Indian Education Needs to Hit the Bull’s Eye
Dr T Venu Gopal Rao, Academic Director, Fusion International School, Hyderabad

CORPORATE DIARY
Enhancing Higher Education
Akshat Srivastava, Managing Director, Enhance Education Pvt Ltd

Kudos to Inspirational Teaching
Meena Ganesh, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Pearson Education Services

ACADEMIA SPEAK
Every Educationist Should be a Change Agent
Dr V K Swamy, Principal, St Joseph’s PG College, Hyderabad

EVENT REPORT
TAISI Conference Decodes the Language of Learning

INDUSTRY SPEAK
Skill Development for Higher Education
Dr Haresh Tank, Director, Station-e Language Labs

Surging Demand for e-Learning Solutions
Veena Raizada, Director Academics, Next Education India Pvt Ltd

CORPORATE DIARY
Affordable Smart Content for Digital Education
Ivan Vazquez, Country Director, Netex  Knowledge Factory

Green is the New Mantra for Indian Education System
K S Muralidhar, CEO, Learnsmart India

SPECIAL FEATURE
Gateway to Education Mpowerment through Technology

POLICY MATTERS
We are Capable of Providing World Class Training in IT Related Subjects
Ponnala Lakshmaiaha, Minister of Information Technology & Communications, Government of Andhra Pradesh

Right to Education The Way Ahead
K Parthasarathy, Minister for Secondary Education