Lessons of life
At the dawn of a new year, a look at some idealists who believe in building a brave new world. They are driven by the desire to provide education to underprivileged children and have brought about innovations in teaching
Kavita Kanan Chandra

Just enrolment in schools does not mean access to quality education for children. In our country's rural hinterland and urban slums there are many government and private schools that teach children. But only a few schools provide quality education. When a fourth grade student could not write a complete sentence in a rural government school, girls in urban slums work as housemaids rather than get educated or a village lacking electricity lets education go for a toss; there is need to worry. Sending these kids to school is not a solution in itself but ensuring proper education is.

Educationists like Safeena Husain (Mumbai), Urvashi Sahni (Lucknow) and Chandrakant Singh (Bangalore) were aghast to witness the above situations and became beacons of hope for these children. Some innovations in the school model, method of teaching and use of technology by these educationists went a long way in reforming the education system, thus giving the underprivileged children a chance to get quality education. It is a must for every child in order to be able to compete on a level playing field. "How could children with no access to quality education ever compete with those who have that privilege?"

In the process, these educationists are also trying to give special attention to girls' enrolment and their retention in classrooms so that the gender gap in education gets reduced considerably.

Safeena Husain (Mumbai)

Safeena, an alumnus of the London School of Economics, is dedicated to reforming the education system in Rajasthan's rural government schools. Through her NGO "Educate Girls," she is spearheading education of girls. Starting from 2007, over 52,000 girls have been enrolled in 5,700 schools in Pali, Jalore and Sirohi. They also campaign to send child brides to school and eradicate the system since Rajasthan has a large percentage of child brides. An innovation like "community ownership" concept helps to engage the parents of the students' to assess the infrastructure of government schools and to hold them accountable for lapses. Most parents are illiterate, so she has made an action plan where she has listed the visual tools that are mandatory in a government school like toilets, classrooms, mid-day meals etc. It was found that only 40 per cent schools had girls' toilet and this was one reason why girl students had poor attendance. Safeena ensured there was a democratically elected parent's council and over 4,000 school management committees were formed. Parents were taught about their rights while doing school assessment and demand for improvement.

Through "team Balika," she motivates educated girls in age group of 18-22 to provide informal education in a fun-filled way to government school students. There are 1,500 dedicated teacher volunteers. Among students, over 30,000 girls have become school leaders by joining bal sabhas. A survey of schools in 2005, showed Safeena how children from government schools lacked basic education. Funds were not an issue but the apathy of school administration, teachers and bureaucracy was. Her NGO is in partnership with the Rajasthan Government and a MOU of public-private partnership has been signe and a district-level task force has been formed with a blanket permission to work with the government. Three more districts and 10,000 schools will be covered next year.

Dr. Urvashi Sahni (Lucknow)

An educationist and social entrepreneur, Urvashi Sahni has a PhD from the Graduate School of Education in University of California at Berkeley. She has introduced the innovative concept of "Digital Study Hall" (DSH) project, a technology-assisted cost-effective distance learning project for underprivileged students. This provides students from urban slums and rural areas access to quality teaching. A user-friendly, video-sharing system, it helps to overcome the lack of quality education due to a shortfall of good teachers in poor and remote areas. This project entails recording of actual classroom teaching of good schools with best teachers. The tapes are then played in a government school where a teacher is trained to impart quality education to the students. Many of these are single-teacher schools, where the teachers lack the skill and training to impart quality education to students. DVDs, web and media projectors are used and regular intervals are given for interactive sessions based on video content, so that an effective teaching-learning process is created.

All eight KGBVs (Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas) in Lucknow are part of the DSH network. DSH is all set to expand in 12 districts in the coming months, increasing its outreach to 1,200 girls in KGBVs. They have recently added another 200 videos, in addition to the existing 2,000 in their digital library. Over 6,000 students are using DSH videos. DSH has started five informal education centres — one in Village Digdiga and four at brick manufacturing sites for the children of the labourers, reaching out to around 200 students. To create social awareness and gender equality, DSH works beyond academics and its team has created videos on domestic violence, sexual abuse, child marriage and other problems being faced by girls in India.

Urvashi’s emphasis is more towards educating the girl child. She founded the Studyhall School in Lucknow, Vidyasthali Kanaar Primary School in Kanaar village in Malhihabad district (UP) and a girls school "Prerna" in Lucknow for those belonging to the low-income group.

Chandrakant Singh (Bangalore)

An engineer with M.Tech degree from IIT Mumbai, five years back, when he founded 'Chaitanya Gurukul Trust Public School' at nondescript village Chamanpura in Gopalganj district of Bihar, Chandrakant ran the school on generators for there was no electricity. Even then internet, Skype and video conferencing were used to supplement classroom teaching through lectures by eminent teachers in India's metro and even those in the USA. The physical presence of a teacher could not be denied in a classroom. Where expert guidance is required there is the use of technology to bridge the gap. Providing quality education even in the remotest and poor part of the country is an innovation that Chandrakant experimented successfully. With electricity supply this year, things have eased out a bit. The endeavour is to provide world-class technology assisted education in a place where a very rustic primary school existed and hardly any child got quality education. There is Wi-Fi connectivity in the campus and most modern educational and sports amenities are present. This includes a computer lab and even a swimming pool. Guest lectures by eminent educationist are encouraged and a lot of emphasis on recruitment of good teachers is given. Teachers are selected through competitive exams and trained in Bangalore. With many children getting good ranks in Olympiad tests; the school has made a mark academically. The CBSE-affliated school's first batch will appear for the Class X Board exams in 2015. In the Olympiad first year 2011, 12 students; second year 2012 , 24 students got ranks at the national level and one student from a poor family, got 62 international rank. There are 600 students, including 60 girls. Thirty per cent are poor students who pay no fees.

More than innovation in education, it is the self-sustaining revenue-generating model of the school founded in a village that excites Chandrakant. He says that even big corporates fear opening a school in a village but he has made a success out of it even though 30 per cent of all students are provided absolutely free education. The model is like a pyramid where the total number of students is divided into three rungs, with the ratio of 3:4:3. Starting from bottom rung that pay no fees, to the middle rung that pays discounted fees, we come finally to the topmost rung that pays the full fees. The payment of fees depends on the capacity of the parents.

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