Playing A Small Part in my Social Responsibility

My volunteering journey has been quite long and has traveled with me to every school that I have moved to as a child and to every country I have relocated as an adult. Giving back in kind to the community that I reside in, is something I have picked up from my childhood. “Our Village Our Responsibility” (OVOR - #OurVillageOurResponsibility, #OVOR) is an organisation that I have had the pleasure to be associated with after my recent move to India. They are a team, who is passionate about making things better around for all of us, a group of people who share similar views as me.

Their call for volunteer tutors on their Facebook page, to conduct eTeaching for children studying in Government schools in the Virudhunagar district, caught my attention and thus started my association with the founder, Ms. Kavitha K Pandian – an NRI living in the USA. Through their “Classes through Skype” initiative, English and Computer subjects are taught across 28 Government Schools in Virudhunagar, Dindugal, Villupuram and Theni Districts, covering 5200+ students per week involving 150+ volunteer tutors. 

Our Village Our Responsibility was registered as a trust in 2018, though Ms. Kavitha has been working towards this cause individually for around 15 years. The main focus areas for OVOR are: 

• Motivating youngsters to participate & work towards ensuring better governance by elected representatives and public servants.
• Focusing on bringing Govt schools to the forefront by
• Teaching English, National Means-Cum-Merit Scholarship (NMMS) & Computer Science through Skype. This is to bridge the gap between the private schools and government schools, where the government schools are at a disadvantage due to the challenge in the available resources (including personnel and materials). 
• Improvement in Infrastructure: A very critical aspect of providing quality education, especially for the girl children and first-generation learners. In order to make education more appealing and comfortable, infrastructure is a key factor. E.g. toilets, safe and strong school building, comfortable chairs & tables to sit, a library with at least a handful of books for additional reading to improve language and knowledge.

I have been tutoring 25 children in Class VIII from Government High School, Thulukapatty in Virudhunagar District, once a week, for the past 6 months. When an opportunity presented, I also made a personal visit to the school on 18-Nov-19 for face-to-face interaction with the children and staff. 

Having lived in the city all my life, even the Government School building that I have come across, was big in size. This school, which was about 30 minutes’ drive from the town of Virudhunagar, was quite small and no bigger than 4000 sq ft area (maybe even lesser than that). It has a total strength of 156 students (Classes I to X) and 8 teachers who are responsible of teaching these children every subject and prepare them to face the exams of school and life. Having said that, I could not find even one unhappy child in that school. Every direction I turned, I only saw curious happy faces, eager to know who I was (a stranger who was visiting their school). 

I spent almost 2 hours with Class VIII. I had prepared 2 interactive activities to understand how I needed to change my approach to teaching English for them. One was a translation of a small Tamil moral story and the other was to build a passage or a few sentences using 5 random words. They put in their best and earnestly tried to do both these activities for my benefit. In all that 2 hours, I never saw a bored face, a face that was frustrated to sit in class, none of them wanted to walk out of the classroom when the break bell rang. They all were actively participating in the classroom activity, being seated on the floor. That showed me a new perspective of life at a Government school and made me want to do more for the eager to learn spirit. This day turned out to be a humbling and happy experience for me. From the response of the children, I am to understand that they also had fun & benefitted from my visit.

There are people who do chequebook charity and there are those who spare their time and effort for the same cause. Both kinds are needed for any purpose to see the light of day. While I and many like me spare our time for Skype tutoring, there have been many who have contributed in the form of money and materials that made the installation of a computer room with at least a dozen systems, broadband connection to make Skype classes possible and a room to hold these things. This school and many like this one still need basic infrastructure improvement and basic amenities like clean toilets. 

I would urge all those who do not provide for either of the above, to do their share either for OVOR (or through other means), to do something to give back to the community. The contentment and the sense of achievement of being an instrument of change in someone’s life is a big personal morale booster that nothing else in life can give you. 

My earnest request to all parents (esp. with children studying in private schools) and youngsters who want to bring in a social change: Please join hands with such volunteering initiatives and do visit at least one government school, for them to give them an exposure to being socially inclusive and responsible.

Let us do our share to realise the dreams of our leaders who dreamt of a socially inclusive and adaptive society that treats every individual with the same dignity and respect as self!

Draft National Education Policy (NEP) - An invigorating day-long dialogue practitioners (Part 2)

Draft National Education Policy (NEP) - An invigorating day-long dialogue practitioners (Part 1)

Post Lunch Sessions

Mr. Nandakumar took the stage (again) to talk in length on School Education. He gave the facts and governing bodies as listed by the policy and concluded his speech with a few observations of his:

1. The governing bodies that will be set up will be mutually exclusive in their functions and roles and hence there will be no conflict of interest. 
2. The split of school education is 5+3+3+4. The last 4 years correspond to 9-12 standard with 4 years, 8 semesters, and 24 subjects with flexibility for students to choose subjects of their choice in addition to the mandatory subjects.

His suggestions, which he said he had already written to the concerned people were:

• Lack of single government-approved rating agency, like the OFSTED in the UK, to rank schools based on some valid criteria such as child safety, inclusivity, active learning, etc.
• No mention of PPP - Private Public Partnerships.
• Private schools to be declared as “industries”.
• Go beyond School Management Committees (SMC) and bring in Boards (Board of Trustees/directors with roles and responsibilities.)
• Bring Coupon system for fee payment where the coupon can be given to the school during admission, which can be converted to money by submitting to the treasury by the school. If the parent wishes to secure private school admission for the child, then the coupon can be topped up with personal money for the difference in fee!

Next, we had Mr. Divanshu Kumar, Founder & CEO Involve - focus area being peer teaching with Student Leaders and Student Learners as stakeholders. The draft NEP talks about National Tutors Program (NTP), which is in line with the focus area of Involve. He gave a concise picture of their solution for improving learning outcomes in school children, the assessment modality and how they have witnessed a marked increase in the learning outcome with the group that was part of their program. He also spoke how the model is a viable solution for the NTP suggested by the draft. The result of his program saw student leaders (role of peer teachers) develop 21st-century skills like collaborating, cooperating, creativity, communication, flexibility in addition to literacy.

Dr. Uma Muthuram, Managing Trustee, Suyam Charitable Trust, spoke about Equity and Inclusion in Draft NEP. She raised a few operational concerns regarding the lofty changes that the policy was speaking about. She registered her reservations on the effective execution of the policy to its spirit, based on her current and earlier experience with bureaucracy and regulatory authorities.

Ms. Pooja Jayaram, Education Consultant and Teach for India Alumnus, spoke at length on Curriculum and Pedagogy based on her experience as a fellow of Teach for India initiative. Her concern was that the rural-urban divide may become more pronounced if the implementation of the processes documented in NEP, doesn’t take into consideration the practical implications with respect to the teaching abilities of the volunteers who are expected to support the schools!

Another panel discussion ensued with the stage adorned by Mr. Vikas Arya, Director - DAV Group of Schools, Ms. Vidhyavathi, Head Mistress - TVS Higher Secondary School Madurai, Ms. Gowri Shivshankar, Principal - Chettinad Harishree Vidyashram, Ms. Aruna Rathnam, Executive Director - Madhuram Narayanan Centre for Exceptional Children on Draft NEP and the Teacher. The common point raised was on the aspect of the implementation. From the practice standpoint, they felt that there will be challenges in implementing the change, based on the current and previous practices that they have had the chance to experience over their tenure. Also, Ms. Aruna Rathnam felt disappointed that the draft NEP does not talk anything about exceptional children and their education.

Last but not the least, on stage, was Mr. Vishwanathan Radhakrishnan, Corporate Volunteer to share his views on Remedial Instructional Aides Program (RIAP). Like the NTP, RIAP is also an initiative that involves community engagement to support school teachers in addressing the gap in achieving Foundational literacy and numeracy.

Key Take-Aways:

• The Draft NEP is a welcome step to uplift our national educational system combining the traditional Indian and modern international pedagogy and emerge as leaders in the educational front.
• The clear differentiation of regulatory, governing and implementing bodies removes any conflict of interest and would ensure better quality education.
• The Census exams proposed at standard 3, 5, and 8 are not to be confused with board exams. They are a way to assess the student’s ability to understand the minimum requirements for that stage and if there is a mismatch noticed, then the needed corrective action with additional teaching/learning support could be provided.
• The three-language system is expected at basic proficiency. Learning more than one language in a diverse nation like ours increases the prospects of better career planning and makes relocation (due to globalization) seem like a breeze. 
• Imbibing 21st Century skills and increasing the employability of graduating students.
• Concept of school blocks, which necessarily do not mean the closing of small schools, but combining of facilities of bigger schools with that of the small school that cannot scale up to become big enough so that the student learning is enhanced and hindrances due to scalability can be avoided.
• Bringing World-Class universities (similar to Elite Universities of the USA) by urging the Type 1 colleges to increase standards to meet the necessary requirement. Similarly, Type 2 and 3 colleges to continuously strive to up their standards to better themselves in delivering quality education to the graduates enrolled in their institutions.
• The focus to shift from rote learning to experiential and practical learning for all ages. 
• Equip our children with the confidence to face exams instead of fear and shift the focus from marks to learning outcomes and subject knowledge understanding.

As a concluding remark, the organisers TNYTF, Bluewhistle, and the experts & panelists alike urged the participants themselves and the general public to read through the draft (even if the time duration to give suggestions has expired by now). As this policy has the capacity to run its course for at least 2 decades (if not 3), it can undergo revisions if needed. If anyone wishes to submit their recommendations, suggestions, changes, concerns or comments on draft NEP, it is now very easy to do so. Just register yourself on Mygov.in and then look up Draft NEP 2019 and then give your feedback (this page also has links to the summary of the policy in different languages) on the respective section as you would like to.

I know it was a long read (hence the 2 part article), but I think it was very important to share the information based on facts, to remove the misinformation that is spreading panic and confusion among a various section of the population. Also, this is going to impact each and every individual or family irrespective of your stake on the system. So please download the Draft NEP (English) and read it, or at least skim through it like a non-fictional read! The summary of the draft is also available in other languages. Here is a link to the Tamil and Hindi version for the summary.

Draft National Education Policy (NEP) - An invigorating day-long dialogue practitioners (Part 1)

On 27-July-2019 (Sat), I attended a dialogue on the much-discussed and debated, Draft National Education Policy (NEP) 2019 at D.G. Vaishnav College, organised and hosted by Tamil Nadu Young Thinkers Forum (TNYTF), in association with D.G. Vaishnav College.

I had already started reading the draft before this meeting. Skimming through this sheer volume of 484-pages document was a bit daunting. I spent more time on Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) & Foundational Literacy and Numeracy sections. I personally felt, both these topics were well-documented (excellent English) and well researched on every possible aspect.

The speakers of the event were veterans in the education sector, who had been in the practice for at least more than 2 decades. There were prominent Educationalists, University/College/School Principals, Deans, CEOs of career planning/reskilling firms, EdTech Consultants, Social Entrepreneurs/workers, and volunteers, with years of varied experiences and exposure

The agenda of the program was for these speakers to pick each section of the NEP and giving a gist of what it says, their understanding, appreciation and criticism on the same and finally providing suggestions on what can be included or changed to make it better. What more could I have asked for to find an easy but very efficient route, to better understand the whole document in a single day?

The day started with Mr. Sundara Velavan from TNYTF welcoming the participants who filled the auditorium, followed by Tamil Thaai vazhthu, brought back memories of my school choir days. Following that, Mr. Nandakumar Venkatraman, Director-Datta Education Consultants, to set the context for the day’s proceedings. I was taken by surprise when I heard a name familiar from my school days - My Principal Sir, from secondary school. As a student, I admired him for his articulate and factual delivery of the speech on any topic.

He gave a brief history about the NEP starting with the Kothari Commission (1964-66), the NEP of 1986, and a few more. He touched upon the major revisions that it underwent, spoke about how this current draft NEP 2019 was the effort of two experts with TSR Subramanian Committee doing the initial work and after him, the current Draft NEP was brought together by the team which was chaired by K. Kasturirangan, Former Chairman, ISRO (among many other positions to his credit). His request to the audience was to listen to the day’s proceedings, get factual information about the draft, and then share it to challenge the misinformation that is making rounds in the various media (social networks, WhatsApps etc.).

He introduced Dr. S. Vaidhyasubramaniam, Vice Chancellor and TCS Chair Professor of Management, Sastra University, and welcomed him on stage to speak on Higher Education (Reforms in Institutional Governance and Regulation).

Dr. Vaidhyasubramaniam, who was consulted by both TSR Subramanian and K Kasturirangan, while the draft was being formulated, started with a brief on the 4 different models of governance, introduced the various governing and regulatory bodies (RSA, NEHRA, NRF, NAAC, NCTE, AICTE, etc.) that were responsible in future for the functioning of the Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs). He also spoke on the usage of the nomenclature - College, University, Deemed University and such. He was sure that this policy will be passed in the parliament session and was hopeful that the enactments (Central and State) that followed and the regulations designed would help in keeping the spirit of the policy intact. He also stated that the various regulatory and evaluating bodies will not have any conflict of interest as clear lines of responsibilities and roles will have to be defined for each of them. His take was that the policy was an outcome-based policy was good for the better future of education. It will also urge educational institutions to up their ante and rise up to world-class institutions quality standards.

Mr. Tamilselvan Mahalingam, Founder & CEO Future Captains, spoke on the section covering Professional Education. His stance, like his predecessor, was that the policy was great and he impressed upon the fact that the policy talks about skilling (through PMKVY) and 21st-century skills needed for career planning and development. He talked about the scholarship program that is being recommended for professional education and registered his concern for the proper regulation of its disbursement. He also felt that there was not enough said about the legal education & entrepreneurial curriculum as he felt these were very relevant and more focus. He insisted on career planning and exploration being part of the higher and professional education.

The panel discussion that followed him was on Vocational Education, Skills and Jobs. The stage was occupied by three vibrant (probably even diverse I could say from their thought perspective) people – Mr. Rajaram Muthukrishnan, Founder - Swatantra Foundation, Ms. Swati Komandur, CEO - Sixerclass, and Mr. Rajendran Dandapani, Vice Chancellor, Zoho University. The panel discussion started with a light note with the panelists confessing that like the audience they also have not gone through the entire 484 pages of the draft but did read up on relevant sections that spoke on skilling using a word search. This being the high note of the discussion, it was quite vibrant and touched upon various aspects of skilling as discussed in the policy and currently existing in the industry. Main highlights included:

1. The mindset change (to not look down upon) that was needed towards vocational studies as they are no less than the “professional studies”.
2. The need for internship exposure to enhance the knowledge on the practice of the profession rather than textbook-based learning.

In fact, Mr. Rajendran went on record stating that if this policy was implemented a few years ago, then he would not have taken the decision to home school his child! The panel discussion ended with a wishlist of the policy to include about Maker mindset, talk about 'collaborate & co-operate' rather than compete, focus on the mindset change towards Industrial Training Institute (ITI) education.

Next on stage was Mr. Saikrishnan, Managing Trustee - Nidharsanam Charitable Trust. A school dropout himself, he spoke on what he expected from school education and why he was a dropout. He insisted that he has not read the policy and his main aim to come to this dialogue was with the hope to understand the policy better (just like most of the participants) from the experts and practitioners. From what he had heard on the news and from people around him, he said he welcomes the census exams (3, 5, & 8) as he thinks that this would give a gauge on the capabilities and understanding levels of the child and if needed, a necessary intervention to course correct the learning path of that child (to avoid/reduce dropouts). He also urged the need to inculcate problem-solving outlook and a liking towards education.

We broke for lunch but the dialogues continued even at the lunch table. I was humbled to share the table with 5 other eminent personalities. With so much of food going in for my intellect, my actual hunger pangs were almost negligible. I ate because I did not want to feel hungry during the second half of the marathon.

Post Lunch Sessions continued in Part 2.

Proud Mommy Moment !

Children dressed up as us

Children having their Spring break now - Today my 8 yr old daughter and 4 yr old son, were busy with "pretend play". You might be wondering what is so proud about that as it is a very normal occurrence for toddlers to enjoy pretend play. But today, they were pretending to be Me and my Husband.... Or in their view Mommy and Daddy!!!

So here is how it went:

Daughter as Daddy

My daughter pretends to be a Daddy, puts on Daddy's coat, scarf, hat and bag, ready to go out to office. Seeing this my son wants to pretend as well. Now that Daddy's role is taken up, he wants to be Mommy. So he requests his sister to dress him up (which she dutifully does) with my coat, hat and a grocery shopping bag.

Now they have their dialogue.

Daddy: I am all set to leave for office. Bye. See you in the evening.
Mommy: Take care and have a nice day.

Now the scene shifts to a weekend.

Son as Mommy

Mommy: I am leaving to shopping. Will be back soon.
A few seconds later, Mommy is back from shopping.

Mommy: Look how many fruits I have bought.
Daddy: Oh... Let me help you carry the bag. Come in and sit down. Here, have some water and rest. Let me take care of the cooking and children.

Oh... I felt so happy, bursting with pride!! How many barriers did we (me and my husband) break as parents! We have been successful in breaking the stereotypical image of roles and brought in a sense of equality not just in the responsibilities of people in the house but also about what role they wanted to choose to be. Poor Daddy missed these scenes Live as it is, as usual, office day for him!!!

Our experience with our first yard sale

I am currently in the process moving (USA to India). This time around, we had enough time to plan our move and hence were able to plan to dispose of the things at home with a yard sale. This being the first time of hosting a yard sale, I was unprepared for the challenges it would bring with it.

Couple of mothers with toddlers decided to come and have a look at the things at home before they were put up for yard sale over the weekend. I was emotionally drained after they left. Their kids were running wild inside the house picking up everything they saw, throwing them around, going into all the rooms without their Moms, waking up my sleeping child (poor thing did not even whine and was so understanding that she waited patiently for me to lift her), walking over crockery. The mothers just refused to even budge from their haggling and buying process to intervene.

At a point, all my decency and courtesy went out the door and I had to ask the kids to stay put in the living room and not come into the room where we had organized the things that we were planning to put for Yard sale. Even that was not the end of it. Again, they ransacked the entire house (Kitchen, Living room, master Bedroom) and brought things from there into the second room, mixed them with the yard sale items. This was getting me irritated, but my irritation was towards the Moms.

It got me thinking how parents do not bother to keep an eye on their child and go about doing their own thing with the least concern for place they are in or the people around them. Though it is wrong and not my place to discipline someone else's child, this day became an exception. I just could not help it and had to put it sternly to the children not to take everything, take away things from their hands, and finally physically move them out to the living room.

That experience left me angry at the parents for not teaching good behavior and etiquette to their children. It is not the child's fault if the child does not behave well. As parents, it is our responsibility to teach them right from wrong, good behavior, manners, etiquette (inside our home and outside), to choose, to decide etc. If we do not do these, then we fail as parents and when the child grows, he/she has every right to blame us for not giving them the proper tools to be successful in their life.

Instead of enabling our children's bad behavior by ignoring them or saying "They are children.They will outgrow it", spending quality time with them, talking to them, playing with them helps. Children understand what we say and what we do, however young they are. Irrespective of the child being 6 months old or 6 yrs old, they understand us. It is up to us to find the right way/method of communication to them. The more time we take to be with our children, not just physically, but wholly, giving them the attention they need, the support and love they need, and the time they need, the better mannered, smarter, stronger, loving, happy and well communicative they get.

This said, there were other parents who came over with quite, well behaved kids, who politely asked if they could take a toy or a book that was on the sale pile to us and their parents, before they picked it up from the pile. Overall it was a great experience organizing the sale at home and a wonderful opportunity to know more people even at a time when I am leaving the place.

Appreciation for Old Age !!

Old Age - All of us go through it one way or other. What we all fail to realize is that, life is a big circle and  the truth "what goes around comes back around" - sometimes with 'extra baggage' as well ! In today's fast-paced world, all of us hear and read about families where elders (especially parents and grandparents) are not taken care of and ignored. Respect for elders and multi-generational households are also dwindling. Many ‘old age homes’ have opened as a reflection of this change, where elders live either from choice or because there is no one to look after them. I recently came across an interesting e-mail forward, which prompted me to post this blog. Here is a snippet from the same:

"Mr. ABC booked an air ticket for his parents' trip back to their home town instead of booking it in a train and was awarded with a very emotional thank you from his parents, as it meant a great deal to them to be travelling by air, for the first time in their whole life."

This is probably a trivial incident. I am sure there must have been various instances in each of our own life's experiences from where we can take countless examples. We often take our elders for granted and undermine sacrifices that they have done for us over the years with the simple statement - "It was their duty to do the same for their children". But if we really recount such 'simple sacrifices', it will be countless. There was a selflessness in their actions towards us, making our life better within their limited capacity, without us knowing the hardships that they might have gone through to satisfy our demands and delight us.

For example, during a traditional function like Diwali, they would have borrowed / saved money in advance, foregoing their needs, to ensure that the children are not disappointed about their fun with fireworks or new clothes !!! For such innumerable selfless acts, what do they get in return when they get old? Lack of emotional support, neglect by the family members, feeling of insecurity, disrespect and loss of dignity. Children often cite reasons such as being too busy with their own work, 'family' and children (yet they are always able to spend both time and money on holidays, expensive clothes, restaurants/parties...). They blame it on "Generation Gap" and 'brand' elders as 'conservative, boring and out-of-touch with reality'. When our own children grow up, it might be surprising to find us being categorized as old-fashioned, ignorant of latest gadgets / technologies :-)

On the same note, in many families, parents and their married children are not able to get along with each other. We also know about many parents, who still treat their married children like kids, dominating their choice of career, lifestyle and even family planning. The children are also lectured on degrading traditional values, lack of shouldering responsibilities and undermining sufferings of the earlier generations.

Having said that, younger generation and elders should respect each other’s 'culture', feelings and compromise to some extent.  Children need to spend time listening to and addressing specific emotional and material needs of our elders, and treasure them.  After all, our elders expect them to be heard, age with dignity, spend time together with the loved ones and a lot of love !! It is never too late to appreciate and cherish elders for their roles in our lives.