Address At The Sesqui-centenary Celebrations Of St. George's College, Mussoorie

CREATIVITY IN TEACHING

I am happy to participate in the Sesqui-Centenary celebrations of St.George's College, Mussoorie. My respects to Patrician Brothers, greetings to Management, Principal, Faculty Members, students, participants and distinguished guests. I am informed that the spark of inspiration was first ignited by Father Barry and Capuchin Friars in the year 1853 and has been nurtured by the Patrician Brothers for the last 150 years. Over this one and half century the college has developed into a leading institution in education. I am delighted to know that this college has produced many distinguished personalities.

Education with Value System

The best part for a person is his or her learning period in 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. During this period of education, it is essential to have a one hour class every week to discuss about good human beings present and past and what makes a good human being. This class can be called as ?Elevating young minds?. As an example this class can discuss the personalities such as Buddha, Confucius, St. Augustine, Kalifa Omar, Mahatma Gandhi, Einstein, Abraham Lincoln including some scientific personalities and moral stories linked to our civilizational heritage. Twelve-year value-based education of 25,000 hours in the school campus is essential to establish an open and 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 models of education which I have come across in the country, that can promote creativity among children, reduce the dropout by creating sustained interest in learning, how a tele-education programme is complementary to the present educational system, that will enable good teaching to have a wider reach in remote areas and also a quality evaluation system.

Computer Aided Accelerated Learning

The Azim Premji Foundation in collaboration with State Governments and multilateral agencies has started a child friendly school initiative in Karnataka. Recently I visited one of the schools - a Government Secondary School at Nagasandra village near Bangalore, which has been sponsored under this accelerated learning programme. 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 saw that the Scheme was effective because of the commitment of the teachers, village elders and the members of the school committee and the success rate of the programme is high because there is a committed Head teacher. The programme 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.

The focus was 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.

Mapping the Neighbourhood by the children

In my many interactions with school children, parents, teachers and educationists, I have been told that our existing educational process tends to emphasize learning by memory rather than strengthening creativity. The essence of Science & Technology on the other hand is embedded in two of the most fundamental impulses ? the desire to discover and the desire to invent. It is vital that our education process nurtures and nourishes these two impulses.

An attempt in this direction has been made in a pilot programme called ?Mapping the Neighbourhood? initiated by the Department of Science and Technology. In Almora district in Uttaranchal children from 20 schools have been motivated to use mapping techniques to investigate and map basic socio-economic, environmental and ecological issues being faced by the neighbourhood community. Armed with the scientific and technological tools such as Global Positioning System (GPS), Geographic Information System (GIS), Space Imagery incorporated in the hand held computers, the children are creating maps with the neighbourhood details to improve their understanding of the immediate environment. These maps will enable further the technological community to find solutions for the regeneration of fast disappearing natural sources of water, improving road connectivity, finding better locations for electricity and water distribution points, reducing traffic congestion and improved systems of garbage collection. The children propose to extend their understanding to issues of agriculture and irrigation, health and nutrition and so on.

I believe that this method of learning restores the joy of discovery and invention and through this programme we can ignite the minds of the youth and take the country to new heights. I would recommend introduction of this mapping the neighbourhood programme in St.George?s College so that the students of this college can adopt different villages around this area and improve the quality of mountain rural life with the help of local municipality. Now I would like to discuss how the capacity for enquiry can be created among students.

Teaching of Abacus

As an example, I would like to share with you the discussion I had with one of my friends on how to activate both sides of the brain in a balanced way, so that the child can have concentration and high efficiency learning. We have discussed about the use of abacus in developing the capability of the child. Immediately I searched for the information on abacus and its tools available in the internet. I got number of sites that provide simulated training through computers and animated packages for self learning and also various other related tools in the form of mathematics games which makes the learning process a beautiful experience. The teachers should inculcate this capacity of inquiry among the students and the college must provide the environment and infrastructure for the students to learn by themselves with the help of live examples. Now I would like to discuss the societal mission in which the students of this college can contribute.

Adult Literacy mission

St George's college can deploy the students and staff of this college for making this region illiteracy free. You should look beyond the campus and see what opportunities we have to assist the society. One of the possible schemes, you can undertake is a literacy mission to the nearby rural areas. You have nearly 600 students and 63 teachers. There are large number of adults especially women who need education in the remote villages located in this region. If each student in the school with the guidance of the teachers can undertake to educate at least 3 adults per year who cannot read and write the total number of people who can be educated per year will be 1800. In a three year period you can definitely educate more than five thousand adults.

This can be done in addition to the present adult literacy programme being carried out by the Uttaranchal Government. The combined effect will lead to faster realization of the 75% literacy target of Uttaranchal state and certainly will be a creditable achievement for this college. Now I will discuss another important area which will be of interest to the college, teachers and students.

A multi-pronged approach for Tele-Education

A three-pronged approach is essential to make distance education programme viable and a successful proposition to serve as a universal tele-education system to all remote parts of the country. The three essential components are Connectivity, Tele-Education System and the Quality Content Generation and deployment.

Connectivity: Satellite, broadband and wireless communication for last mile access can co-exist together in a integrated network for providing electronic connectivities across the nation. Terrestrial optical communication is becoming cost effective for the national backbone. The fiber to the curb and fiber to the home are becoming a reality, a necessity and affordable. Remote locations could still be reached through the space communication with its low cost, high bandwidth and networking capability. Also data compression techniques can be of great help in increasing bandwidth utilizations. These network system should provide a highway for reaching quality education, tele-medicine, e-governance, e-commerce and entertainment to all parts of the country.

Tele-Education System: Once we have these connectivities, then there could be a universal tele-education system in place to bring virtual classrooms in a multi class environment with seamless two-way interaction between the teachers and students in a collaborative environment. This system should not only enable the lectures to be delivered from the university to reach any remote corner but also enable a good teacher in the remote area to lecture to other participants of the programme.

A Tele-Education delivery system: I would like to narrate our experience in tele-education piloted at Rashtrapati Bhavan (President's house) for providing satellite connectivity for the PREVIK (President's Virtual Institute for Knowledge) members. The connectivity is through V-SATs provided by ISRO, Voice Over-IP and Internet. It provides for both synchronous and asynchronous communication, from text to voice, to video; one-to-one, one-to-many and many-to-many connectivity. In this platform, the live virtual studio environment is created and it will connect a number of remote locations and provide seamless connectivity. I can give a presentation and address the participants in the remote locations and also I can interact through various collaborative tools. I can refer any information on the web and push them to all the remote locations. I 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 two 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, which makes me feel as if I am virtually connected to all participants in multiple locations.

Quality Content Generation: There are three L's of learning: lectures, laboratory and library. The content encompasses all the three L's. Content can be generated in many ways. The first one is the assimilation of the subject by an expert teacher through research study of many books and articles leading to the generation of quality and creative content in a presentable format. The teacher presents in a unique and innovative way to make the content appealing and easily understandable to the students. The second form of content could be on a self-learning method by breaking down the content into a series of question answer models and FAQs. Third may be from various books, which can be extracted through a digital library and presented just-in time to all the remote students. Fourth may be from Internet, where wealth of information is available. Teacher may search the information in the Internet and push the content live through the tele-education system.

The content should have supportive animations, which may even bring virtual laboratories and virtual immersion effects to the remote students. When the content is generated, it should be a sharable learning object across the nation and across all platforms. Some institutions and universities have already started developing their content. The content may be generated making use of the student?s creative and innovative thoughts under the guidance of the expert teachers as a group activity based on a pre-determined standard. This is possible where the capacity has been built by the educational institution into the student to teach while studying. The generated content through this process may be validated and deployed for delivery of lectures through tele-education system.

As an example, my lectures delivered during various functions are dynamically updated in our website. During the address many participants ask questions on several topics. The answers to these questions are also placed in the website as supplementary information. Similarly, the teachers after delivering the talk will also be asked a number of questions by the students. The proceedings of the questions & answers session can be added to the content document for enriching it. I understand Patrician Brothers are running 17 schools in different parts of the country. The tele-education delivery system backed by content generation by your team will enable connectivity between all the 17 schools leading to teaching by best teachers available in your schools to all the students in a virtual class room atmosphere. It will also to a certain extent remove the shortage of good teachers.

Contribution to sports

I understand in the early days the college has contributed four Olympic level players namely Cullins, Marthins, Gaitleys and Tapsells against whose name you have created four houses in this campus. I would suggest you bring back this tradition of developing world class sports and games personalities in this campus. I note that you have a fully centrally heated swimming pool as a part of college infrastructure. You can select 5 children below the age of 10 who have extraordinary aptitude and passion in swimming or any other facet of sports. The college can undertake to nurture them and prepare them for participation in the international events. The college should provide them the necessary infrastructural support, training and the confidence to grow in the sports path without any diversion.

Conclusion : Empowerment

St George's College has been constantly upgrading the quality of teaching, empowering younger generation with educational and extra curricular skills. What we need now is the empowerment at all levels in the college. When the child is empowered by the parents, at various phases of growth, the child gets transformed into a responsible citizen. When the Faculty members and teachers are 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.

My best wishes to all of you during the Sesqui Centenary Celebrations. May God bless you.

QUESTION ANSWERS SESSION

1. Your Excellency, who has influenced you the most?

- Anant Ved., Class VI-B.

Ans. My parents, my elementary school teacher, the great Indian space visionary Dr. Vikram Sarabhai influenced me the most.

2. Your Excellency, how does St. Georges remind you of your own school days?

- Somil, Class VIII-B

Ans. I studied in Schwartz High School, Ramanathapuram. You are very lucky to have every facility in your school such as good class room, library, lab, buses to reach school at right time, including all extra-curricular activities like sports and games. These facilities were not available in those days.

3. Your Excellency, what has been the proudest moment of your life?

- Manjit Sehgal, Class X, Commerce Stream.

Ans. The proudest moment in my life was when a polio affected child who was walking with great difficulty using a 3 kg Floor Reaction Orthosis (Articifial limb), was provided with a light weight FRO weighing 300gms using Carbon fibre used in defence equipments. The child started jumping, running and riding a bicycle. Her parents shed tears of joy. I was in real bliss.

4. Your Excellency, what kind of future do you foresee for the Indian Youth?

- Mueen Farooq Hakak, Class X, Science Stream.

Ans. We have 540 million young population in our country. This is our core strength. They should contribute to transforming India into a developed nation by 2020. They should study well and excel. Entrepreneurship training should become part of their education. They should all aim to become employment generators rather than employment seekers.

Great responsibilities are waiting for you, such as networking of rivers, execution of PURA, above all transforming India into a developed nation. Every action what you do, you have to keep in mind our major mission of transforming India into a developed nation.

5. Your Excellency, What motivated you to become a Scientist?

- Rishab Mukherjee, Class XII, Science Stream.

Ans. The bird flight story narrated by my elementary school teacher Shri Sivasubramania Iyer while studying my fifth standard at Rameshwaram inspired me and that day I decided that my future would on Aeronautics field which ultimately led me to become Scientist.