Address At The National Conference On Enhancing Learning In Elementary Schools By Azim Premji Foundation, Bangalore

Evolution of Creative Children

I am indeed delighted to participate in the National Conference on Enhancing Learning in Elementary Schools organized by the Ministry of Human Resource Development and Azim Premji Foundation. I greet the organizers, educational authorities of the State and Centre, NGO?s involved in promoting education, representatives of multi-lateral agencies, academicians, professors, principals, teachers and distinguished guests.

Education with Value System

The best part for a person is his or her learning period in his childhood at School. The prime learning period is 6th to 17th year of age. Hence, the school hours for children are the best time for learning, and need the best environment and mission oriented learning with value based educational system. This reminds me the echo from Bestolozzy, a great teacher's saying, "Give me a child for seven years, afterwards, let the God or devil take the child, they cannot change the child." That is indeed the power of the teacher. For parents and teachers, school campus and home have to have an integrated mission: education with value system. If the child misses the 12-year value-based education of 25,000 hours in the school campus, no government or society can establish a transparent society or a society with integrity. Up to the age of 17 years, the father, the mother and the teacher lead a child to become an enlightened citizen. I would like to discuss a few successful models of education system to improve the learning ability and to promote creativity among children in different parts of the country.

Azim Premji Model

I understand, in an effort to improve the overall quality of school learning for children, the Azim Premji Foundation in collaboration with state governments and multilateral agencies has started a child friendly school initiative. The principal aim of this programme is to ensure that all children come to school, learn during school time and complete five years of schooling. Dropouts are identified and brought to the school. I am informed that the Scheme is effective because of the commitment of the teachers, village elders and the members of the school committee and that the success rate of the programme is high because there is a committed Head teacher. The programme, it is said, encompasses a series of interventions that strengthens practices in the classroom and provides support to educational administration and community empowerment to manage the educational process. The initiative includes setting standards regarding facilities like classrooms, water, sanitation and services like safety, physical and psycho-social health.

It is further reported that the focus will also be on gender sensitive curricula and materials for literacy, numeric ability, knowledge, attitudes, skills for life and learning processes. The initiative also addresses the issue of effective home school relations and quality assessment methods. The programme is either output driven or input driven based on the region of experimentation and goes beyond cognizant learning and memory test. It emphasizes on intellectual, technical, physical, creative and spiritual learning. This holistic phenomenon of learning once ingrained in the primary stage where there is a happy learning process and a non-threatening evaluation, has led to voluntary learning by the participants. I congratulate Azim Premji Foundation and the partners like state government for becoming a major child centric content developer in multiple local languages.

M.R. Raju model

Prof. M.R.Raju lives in his native village Peddamiram close to Bheemavaram, Andhra Pradesh. The life of Prof. Raju is indeed a great example, how a famous nuclear scientist working in Los Alamos Laboratory, USA left his job and came to his village and decided to transform Peddamiram and its surroundings, with the support of his family members. With his assets he started the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Medical Trust in that village. In a decade, he and his team supported by volunteers from various institutions from India and abroad, have brought great change to the people in the village. Particularly he targeted character building and upliftment of the children in the age group of 3 to 5 years. The village has 100 children in this age group, out of this 50 belong to the high income group who study in private schools. 30 are very poor and they study in Balwadi School run by the State Government. The other 20 join the school being run by Prof. M R Raju. In this school the parents have to pay a fee of half a days wages per child/per month. For girl students they have to pay Rs.10/- per month. The emphasis in this school is on playful environment, nutritional support and caring love. This experiment is being repeated in many other schools.

The parents are periodically invited to the school and given training on the need for providing nutrition to the children through proteins, leafy vegetables and eggs. The children are given training on cleanliness and hygiene. For example they are taught about importance of washing hands before eating. With this training they become teachers at home for hygienic practice and they will not allow any of their members to take food without washing hands. When the teachers interact with the children they always talk to them as a scientist. This technique is promoting creativity among the children. When a child is shown the letter ?B? and asked what he understood by this letter, the child says it is looking like a spectacle. Similarly when a sketch is started with some features such as eyes or lips the children are able to draw a full picture. This shows the creative ability of the students. These students once trained in Prof Raju?s school for three years, they have learned to enjoy studies and they do not become drop outs later. This has totally transformed the village atmosphere and the drop out rate of the children in schools has come down from 70% to less than 30%. A confident young population is emerging in the village and the surroundings. This method of training has been researched by child psychologists and educational theorists and Prof Raju?s effort during the last 10 years proves the theory. This approach makes the child a willing learner before entering the school and makes him to participate in the school learning process when he joins the regular school.

There are other models of children education such as JSS Maha Vidyapeetha of Sutur, Karnataka where thousands of children are being educated and grown with extraordinary care by His Holiness Shri Shivarathri Deshikendra Maha Swamigal. Similarly, Smt. Poornima Pakwasa is in the mission of educating thousands of tribal girls in a village called Saputara in Gujarat.

Apart from attracting children to schools, the education system should be able to inject creativity among the children. Also the aim of the education system should be to build character, human values, enhance the learning capacity through technology and build the confidence among children to face the future.

A Tele-Education model for long reach

I would like to narrate another learning model through the tele-education mode piloted at Rashtrapati Bhavan for providing satellite connectivity for the PREVIK (President?s Virtual Institute for Knowledge), which we have established recently for establishing knowledge connectivity through the VSATs installed by ISRO. In this platform, the live virtual studio environment is created and it will connect a number of remote locations and provides seamless one to many connectivity through multicasting mode in a collaborative environment as well as two-way connectivity is established. In this platform, I can give a presentation and address the remote locations, where the multimedia delivery is possible and also I can interact through various collaborative tools. I can refer any informational website from Internet to all the remote locations and can also delegate the remote expert to give a lecture to all those who are connected. We have also established the Digital Library and digitized around 2 million pages. I can search for a particular page and push the page to all the participants through this tele-education. It is an integrated solution provided and makes me feel as if I am virtually connected to all and interact with them in a seamless and cost effective manner to multiple of locations. This kind of delivery mechanism through tele-education framework may certainly help in taking the quality content generated by Azim Premji Foundation to targeted 50 million students who are presently out of school in the country. This model may give solution to the shortage of good teachers.

Capacity building model

I had a discussion with Prof. Robert O? Slater, Professor of Education and Human Development of Texas A&M University, USA which emerged into an educational model, necessary for contributing towards the economic growth of a nation. In the education environment we want to give our children the capacity for contributing to economic development and nation building. What kind of nation does India want to build? India transforming into a developed nation by 2020, is the vision of the nation. Can we sow the seeds of capacity building in primary school children?

For realizing the above vision, the capacities required in educational institutions are: The capacity for research or inquiry, the capacity for Creativity and Innovation, particularly the creative transfer of knowledge, the capacity to use high technology, the capacity for Entrepreneurial Leadership and the capacity for Moral Leadership. Research and enquiry: The 20th century was for the generation of knowledge. The 21st century will be about the management of all the knowledge and information we have generated and give value to it. We must give our children, the skills with which they find a way through the sea of knowledge that we have created and continue with life long learning. Today, we have the ability, through technology, to really and truly teach ourselves and to become the life-long learners that any sustained economic and political development requires.

Creativity and innovation: We can best teach ourselves by teaching others. The management of knowledge in 21st century is beyond the capacity of individuals. The amount of information that we have is overwhelming and has exceeded the capacity of individuals. The management of knowledge therefore must move out of the realm of the individual and into the realm of the society. The children must learn how to manage knowledge collectively. In other words they must not only learn themselves, but also teach others and learn as teams.

Capacity to use of high technology: Every student in our schools should learn to know how to use the latest technologies for aiding their learning process. Schools should equip themselves with adequate computing equipment, laboratory equipments, Internet facilities and provide an environment for the students to enhance their learning ability.

Entrepreneurship: The aptitude for entrepreneurship should be cultivated in the school environment itself. We must teach our children to take calculated risks for the sake of larger gain. They should also cultivate a disposition to do things right. This capacity will enable them to take up challenging tasks later.

Moral leadership: Moral leadership involves two aspects. First it requires the ability to have compelling and powerful dreams or visions of human betterment. A state of things in which human beings could be better off in the future than they are now. Moral leadership requires a disposition to do the right thing and influence others also to do right things.

In sum, inquiry, creativity, technology, entrepreneurial and moral leadership are the five capacities required to be built through the education process. The life and contribution of Shri Azim Premji talk about this. If we develop in all our children these five capacities, we will produce ?Autonomous Learner? a self directed, self controlled, lifelong learner who will have the capacity to both, respect authority and at the same time is capable of questioning authority, in an appropriate manner. These are the leaders required for transforming India into a developed nation in a time bound manner.

Conclusion : Empowerment

When the child is empowered by the parents, at various phases of growth, the child gets transformed into a responsible citizen. When the teacher is empowered with knowledge and experience, good young human beings with value systems take shape. When individual or a team is empowered with technology, transformation to higher potential for achievement is assured. When the leader of any institution empowers his or her people, leaders are born who can change the nation in multiple areas. When women are empowered, society with stability gets assured. When the political leaders of the nation empower the people through visionary policies, the prosperity of the nation is certain.

I am sure knowledge blended with value system empowers a child to achieve greater heights in his/her life.

My best wishes.