Albert Einstein once said “It’s a miracle that curiosity survives formal education”. “MBA”, the buzz word itself has a lot of things to learn from. Time management has certainly been one of them. But, managing time besides adhering to some social responsibilities is something that no other place could teach me. At SIIB, I am privileged to work with ‘Kshitij’ – the Community Development Initiative. Under this unit, I along with my colleagues, teach at a Govt. Senior Secondary School situated at Wakad, Pune. With this I wish to share my first hand experiences:
With the zephyr at its best and the monsoon rains at peak, my every interaction with the kids and the school authorities was distinctive. With every kid, I had more no. of eyes staring at me; no doubt inviolate and sacrosanct. Eyes filled with their own demands. Demands could be many; knowledge, inflated earning capacity, achievement, money and more…. These kids aren’t satisfied with what they have and what is being done to them in the school. What is it that’s keeping these kids immured in the school boundaries? Is it the societal statute? Or a dubious malediction brought out by their parents, who couldn’t get them to a high profile so called “Public School”? What is it exactly that satisfies human satiety? Are we really concerned about these kids and their future? Or simply blowing our own trumpet? I am sure these questions engender interest; irrespective of where you come from. If these questions help you realize that there is a wide of the mark, half my job is done.
On Interaction with the kids we have had our individual takeaways. But a question still went disturbing me throughout, “Is providing the right infrastructure for the schools the end of the road?” I have tried to gather the information to answer this question, but unfortunately in bits and pieces. The first thing that I observed was the system that prevails in India is unidirectional. The kids are shown the path and are required to follow the same stringent guidelines and deadlines. Provided the fact that everyone is unique and comes from different backgrounds, such a system is crippling. Secondly, there is no feedback mechanism designed, so that the students have a say in teaching methodology followed. Also, in my personal observation, there are no checks over what is being taught and discussed under these tarnished roofs.
The things could be made worse by simply sitting and watching. With a team of so many hard working souls, the best prerogative left with us was to take action. So the very first day we met the school authorities we had to set the goals fundamentally sound. Believe me; working with government machinery has its own limitations, though this is the best conduit to bring the flow of change that we have been longing for. And this is exactly the place where we have been making mistakes since independence. So, being the evangelists of change we proceeded with firm determination. We charted out a strict schedule to follow, a detailed session plan and the best co-curricular that could be added.
Recently, I was one of those chosen to meet Rahul Gandhi (MP-Ajmer constituency-NSUI meet, Pune, 7th Sept.). The same day someone asked Mr. Gandhi about what is to be done with Indian education system so that fruitful results can be expected. With all his charm and wit he replied “we have to focus on Education and not literacy alone”. Since then I kept this principle in mind. I believe, even if we can acknowledge the right problems at this stage then we can avoid much loss in terms of the coming generation, and much can be saved at hand.
