Monica Mehan,
Principal, DAV, Khera Khurd

Determination and innovation can lead to vast improvements in education

We have the story of a DAV school in the rural outskirts of Khera Khurd that was on the verge of being shut down, but it revived itself by facing challenges head on. It brings to light the fact that limited resources and finances cannot deter a school from making progress. The major challenge is to see the students who are way below the poverty line as an excellent human resource with least TV and computer distractions.
The school’s tag line was changed to: connecting pathways from rural to global. Children were made to sing prayers in English to encourage them to develop global awareness and also improve their pronunciation. The school also took the step of joining hands with the Faith to Face programme so that video conferencing could be done in school.
The school also took to ICT for improving its quality of education. Finances were a major concern and various ways were found to innovatively use the resources to its full capacity without any financial burden. Teachers created blogs and uploaded syllabus for the students to access. On the mandate of CBSE, they launched a website which too was free of cost.
Many innovative ideas were also implemented – like using open software for creating worksheets, Skype for interacting with other DAV schools and usage of YouTube for finding information on chapters and projects. The bottom line is that with determination all kinds of obstacles can be overcome.

Mukul Kanitkar,
Secretary, Vivekananda International Foundation

Value based education is a system that will not only lead us to discovering good profession, it will also instil in us a sense of purpose

Education is the vehicle of knowledge, self-preservation and success. Education not only gives us a platform to succeed, it also  provides us with qualities like strength, character and self respect. The greatest gift education gives us is the knowledge of  unconditional love and a set of values.
These values include the simple difference between right and wrong, a belief in God, the importance of hard work and self respect.  Education is a continuous learning experience; we learn from people, we learn from success and failures, we learn from leaders and followers, and we manage to grow up to be the person we are meant to be.
The Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF) is a New Delhi-based think tank set up with the collaborative efforts of India’s leading security experts, diplomats, industrialists and philanthropists under the aegis of the Vivekananda Kendra.
VIF strives to bring together the best minds in India to ideate on key national and international issues; promote initiatives that further the cause of peace and global harmony; monitor social, economic and political trends that have a bearing on India’s unity and integrity; analyse the causes for social and ethnic conflicts leading to extremism and offer policy alternatives; interact with civil  society and offer institutional support for exchange of ideas and interaction among conflicting groups; critique public policy and the working of democratic institutions and constitutional bodies; and evolve benchmarks for good governance and efficiency in public institutions.
These are objectives that fall under a broad head called `nation-building’ and often come within the purview of universities and  institutions of higher learning. Unfortunately, for reasons best known to those who manage them, these academic bodies have not  been able to attend to these tasks. This neglect, it seems, is in some way responsible for the perceived failure of representative bodies and the prevailing inefficiency in the government sector.

Rittika C Parruck,
Assistant Director Schools-India, British Council

English training helps people find self prosperity in this global community

British Council is a government body dedicated to the promotion of cultural understanding and education. The society also imparts  training in English and Arts. The British government invests in creation of cultural understanding through education. British council  trains people in English to help them be a part of the global community, and to find self sustainability and self prosperity in this global  world.
British Council began working specifically for the school sector around year 2002-03. At that time the Council was working on  students and teacher exchange programme, but soon this had to be supplemented by professional development programme which helped students understand the culture of other countries.
The Council also does whole school accreditation awards called the International School Awards. These awards are a bench marking scheme that rates or rewards schools on the basis of how much cross border experience they gift their children through the  curriculum that they are delivering.
Children learn best if they are having fun, so we tried to gear all the programs to make learning intercultural skills as enjoyable as  possible. The Council is trying to develop learning framework for using games for teaching analytical skills and scientific skills.
The Council has devised very basic ICT training workshop for the government school teachers at a certain level. It does a lot of  experimental work on the cutting edge technology where computer games can drive the child’s own learning and how teachers can support them in this service. A lot of work has been done in creating physical education resources and the physical education card called the ‘tech card’ which the CBSE now uses. Sports can also be used to teach the children true values.
The British Council has a lot to offer when it comes to the promotion of a sustainable development agenda in the field of education.

Simmi Kher,
Coordinator-India, Tony Blair Faith Foundation

Education for sustainable development should focus on key issues like climate change, disasters reduction, biodiversity, poverty reduction, sustainable consumption, etc. 

Many years have passed since the United Nations launched the decade of education for sustainable development during the years 2005 to 2014. Now we are at the last two years of that decade. The UN General Assembly has designated UNESCO as a lead agency to  promote the initiative of education for sustainable development.
The vision for this decade (2005- 2014) was to ensure that everyone in the world had the opportunity of benefitting from quality  education. Everyone should be able to learn values and master new skills. Now the question to the educators is – Have we been successful in providing equal educational opportunities to all?
Education for sustainable development should focus on key issues like climate change, disasters reduction, biodiversity , poverty  reduction, sustainable consumption, etc. This requires farreaching changes in the way education is practiced today. The Tony Blair  Faith Foundation is devoted to contributing its mite in promoting cultural and religious empathy in the world. The Foundation is currently active in 19 countries.
The Face to Faith programme from the Tony Blair Foundation is focussed on schools. It engages students from different faiths into a meaningful dialogue. The aim of the exercise is to enable students to develop connections with rest of the world.

Dr C Chandramohan,
Sr Adviser, Planning Commission, Government of India

Teachers of good quality can revolutionise education

India has a large educational framework of primary and village schools. A total of 95 million children have enrolled in schools. There is  a substantial decline in the social and regional gaps in education.
The first issue is of lack of quality education. The other drawback is that although students have enrolled yet they are not progressing into the system so there is a significant drop out rate. With 8.9 million children out of school, good basic elementary education has to be achieved. In Secondary Education, demand has increased significantly and only a few states like UP, West Bengal, Maharashtra and Gujarat have a strong private sector participation in schools and higher education.
Secondary education cannot be achieved without full partnership with the private sector. The next step is to ensure the quality of teachers. The major problem is that we have about two lakh secondary school teachers who are not fully trained. Teaching has to be seen as a specialised profession which requires knowledge and skill. Teacher Education Scheme has been operational for the last two  decades, but nothing much has come out of it.
Pre-service teachers’ training has to be heavily invested in. About 600 universities have come up and eight more IITs and IIMs have  been added but the quality of education in these institutions has significantly dropped. Universities are of huge size, but they are  unmanageable at the micro level. Education today means reading thick books, whereas the curriculum has to change and things have to be broken down to small specs for better understanding. The primary aim of education is to provide generic and cognitive skills to the students. With the expansion of higher education institutes, we have to consider inclusion and quality in its wake.
Digital learning solutions are uniquely capable of bringing quality and inclusion to the education space.