All School Stuff

One very exciting development has taken place in the school education domain specifically with reference to services.

Imagine a one stop site to order anything related to schools...books for your kid, a pencil box, an interesting book or a even a lunch box...or an activity kit. You can order it online and it comes to your door.

If you notice there is so much paraphernalia related to school or should I say 'school stuff'...thats what allschoolstuff.com is all about. The website also has furniture items on display.

Whats most exciting for me is that its the first exclusive web portal to buy stuff related to schools. It will be a great portal in time to come as the portal lays on the table training modules of coaching centres, competitive exam books and may be even educational gaming. As I see it will be a website where a number of companies would be vying for space. If amply networked with social networking sites being used by students, teacher sand parents...I see a great future for the portal and a great service to people in the school education domain.

Though I will be satisfied only when the portal puts forth products which really enable learning...more of activity kits...maths, science, social science. And also fun products for children...funky t-shirts on school education and tit-bits products for school events...teachers day, school farewells and what not.

I hope the founders do focus on products which aid learning (read teaching learning aids) and revolutionary products in the space of school education. Its only then that the portal will become a real contributor to taking school education to the next level and not just become a stationary shop on the web.

School Uniforms

Waise to there are many things that bug me about school uniforms including the concept itself (The uniform mafia etc) but its a reality that we will continue to use school uniforms.

But at least lets make them wearable and liveable

Had written a entry on uniforms of traffic cops (Read it here). Now let me get to the school uniform.

Shoes - As with the traffic cop analogy of how he is going to run...I think its high time we do away withe black leather hard sole shoes...in which a kid cant run or play football. How about simple sport shoes with walkable soles...in which the kid can run or play football and there is no hassle of polishing shoes (for which kids are often reprimanded)


Pants - Why do we require formal pants on a daily basis...why dont we get to track pants, which are more comfortable. It wont even require a school belt...which is an added cost. Saw a kid from GD Goenka going to school this morning...was wearing a capri kind of pant...couldnt stop but click a picture of him. I dont know if it was their sports uniform or house uniform but it was peppy and made the kid look like a kid. See it below


Shirt - No average teenager or pre-teen likes to wear a shirt. Its so cumbersome. Why not have a T- shirt instead. I know schools have house uniforms with t-shirts...but thats only once or twice a week. Why invest so much in two types of uniforms - house and the regular. A T shirt does not even need to be tucked in with a track pant.


Also...it seems schools are bribed by Nirma and other washing powder companies to have white or other light shaded colour shirts. I would probably go for dark colours and bright colours - dark blue- dark grey- black and what not.

A 'Tie' is something that should be banned anyways for a tropical country like India.


Caps - Its high time the school introduced good quality school caps. Caps could help them in the sun...when they play or walk back home or wait for their bus.


There could actually be a convention on school uniforms. Let me give this idea to a friend who is in the business of making school uniforms.

Choosing streams after class X

Choosing streams after class X could be tricky. The parents want something, the kid wants something else. Even if we leave to the kid...there is a tendency to go with the peer group. If the entire peer group is going for commerce...thats where you go. Its only when you are a week -ten days into the subjects that you realise ...whether that particular stream is your cup of tea. By that time its too late to change I guess.

Manleen Ahluwalia, ex Principal of Indian School shared in a training programme that she used to give 10 days for kids to decide. They could hop classes of every stream in class XI for the first 10 days of the academic year. Once they had taken a taste they were asked to choose one stream. This is a good idea, which needs to be replicated.

Also, may be we should give it a month or so rather than just 10 days. Loss of one month of Study? - Yes! But imagine the burden on the child for his whole life then. Its ok to leave a month I guess.

School Sports room

Sports room generally are dumps...dumps of sports equipment lying in cupboards. There is nothing else to a sports room. Saw an interesting sports room at Shikar Shishu Sadan in the town of Dhampur in Western UP.

The sports room had a number of miniature models of courts of various sports - volley ball, badminton etc. Also there was a map of fielding positions in cricket. It made the room interesting. Though it hardly makes a difference if you know where the third slip is...you need to know how to take a 'catch' there. Nevertheless...it makes sports interesting.





Positions marked on a volley ball court

above positions marked on a cricket field. below- close up

May there be more innovative sports rooms

Skidos

Happened to meet some great young people who have developed SKIDOS aka Smart Kids Outstanding Students. They are into G-Learning or Games Learning. Games developed around subjects taught in the classroom. So, you may have a match the body parts game for biology and you could have some fun as well. There are similar games for Maths, Science and even English.

But the most exciting part for me was games on entrepreneurship, wherein you are given a sum of money to buy resources and execute your project. So, for a lemonade game you may be given Rs 2000 to buy sugar, lemon and water etc.

Visually appealing these games are pitched as revision games to schools by SKIDOS. Though right now its all about getting them on to the computer room's server...but it would be good if we could have kiosks in lobby areas of the school, where kids could play these games on their own.

Do visit www.skidos.com to check out.

Lately, I feel that these games are just examinations, which test information...may the next step for SKIDOS should be to create games which enhance learning rather than just enhance information. Now...thats the challenge.

Azim Premji University – Why not ESD?

One of the significant developments in the education domain in India has definitely been the setting up of the Azim Premji University by Mr Azim Premji, the head of Wipro, the IT giant.

I remember, in an article in India today, Azim Premji had written a page on how much importance he gives to meaningful education. The article was written along with the famous India Today – Education Initiatives survey of learning levels in top schools of this country. At that time, the thoughts which had gone across my mind were that its the usual CSR talk and may be Wipro is not as serious about it.

However, the setting up of Azim Premji University shows how serious he is about it. The most interesting part is that the university provides courses in only two subject areas Education and Development. Being an IT company at Wipro, a technology course could easily have been added ...but wasnt. That shows that the University is not just a set up to support Wipro. It shows the committment of Azim Premji towards Education and Development and he definitely sees education as driving development.

But this write up is not about Azim Premji or Wipro or the strategy behind setting up the university.

As a Education for Sutainable development (ESD) niche expert in India...I am most amused and interested by the two focal points of the university...Education and Development.
However, I am disappointed that the university looks at education and development as two seperate entities and has not yet seen the linkages between Education and Development especially with respect to Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) .

The courses are either purely educational or purely developmental...no course works at the interface of education and development. How about ESD?

If the context of ESD is not created then the university will create great educationisits and great development practitioners working in thier own respective domains of education and development respectively... but not educationists who drive and inspire development. Azim's dream of education driving development would still be distant. In that sense the linkages between Education and Development have to be made clear.

ESD is an important issue for India as a developing country. Until development as a context is not set for education in our country...it would be difficult to see India as a developed country. Education has to happen in the context of Development for a country like India.

It would be a good idea for Anurag, the VC of the University to get in stakeholders like the UNESCO which have been trying to mainstream ESD for quite some time. The UNESCO Decade for Education For Sustainable Development (DESD) is going on right now 2005-2014. The Swedish Centre for Education for Sustainable Development (SWEDESD) based at the Gotland University in Visby could perhaps be another partner. Centre for Environment Education (CEE) the centre for excellence for ESD would be an apt partner in India. And there could be many more partners working on ESD.

Let Azim Premji University be the first University dedicated to Education for Sustainable Development.

(The above cartoon has been taken from Shankar Musafir's upcoming book on school education titled 'To The Principal...yours sincerely'. The book has an exclusive chapter on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in an Indian context. The book will be launched in July 2011)

Civics at Jantar Mantar - School students join Anna Hazaare's protest

It was heartening to see one of the Hindustan Times captions say ‘Teachers brought students to specially witness ‘a social movement’. Students from Bluebells school in Delhi were reported to have been present at the protest and I am sure there were other schools too.

Not only is it important for students to be a part of a social movement for a particular cause but it actually makes a lot of sense pedagogically as well. Speaking from an Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) point of view, school student participation essentially enhances the citizenship education perspective in the light of social sustainability.

Moreover, India being a developing nation, it is important for schools students to get exposure to democratic protests within the country under the umbrella of development.

The experience of the school children at Jantar Mantar cannot be evaluated with objective indicators but I am sure that the experience will have a deep impact on them and who knows…one of them may be leading some important social movements in the country and the world.

Peaceful protests are actually a good ground for learning to take place. One of the projects done by Millennium School in Noida took a bunch of students to Jantar Mantar in Delhi, where they witnessed protests by various political and civil society groups. Students interviewed protesters and found out their motives and questioned if protests actually benefit a cause.

All this happened as part of the Independence Day Project in the school as Indian Independence is a lot about protests. (read my other blog entry on the entire project). The students later juxtaposed present day protests with those in pre-independence times…and explored the journey from ‘marches with mashaals’ to candle light vigils - Mashaalon se candle light march tak ka safar.

Not to let down the cause for which Anna Hazaare is protesting - corruption is a serious issue and may be its time for school students to skip the civics class and make a visit to Jantar Mantar. There is more civics to be learnt at Jantar Mantar.

PTM dressing for parents

General magazines and fashion magazines have carried dozens of pages of models posing with varied dresses for different occasions. The occasions usually range from beach dressing to formal parties and business meetings to Friday dressing. But how would you react if the occasion is a PTM or Parent-Teacher Meeting? I could never imagine it to be a category. And…here I find the latest edition (March 2011) of Outlook carrying a ‘Women’s Day Special Supplement’, which apart from other categories like night out and meeting with clients also includes ‘Parent-Teacher Meeting’ (see pic) As an educationist it amuses me to see a ‘PTM’ to be hot on the couture circuit. After all do we really care what we wear to a PTM as a parent. On second thoughts…it very well could be an established category. Was sharing this with a friend of mine and she shared an incident, where at an admission meeting with parents, she felt out of place as she wasn’t dressed for the occasion as others were. As more and more schools are created and parents take their kid’s education seriously with PTM dressing, I wish… they also spend some time on thinking ‘what would add more value to the education of their child…apart from clothing?’

School Advertisements

Last year there was one full page ad of a school in a Delhi newspaper, which triggered a edit page mention on school advertisements. But really the debate wasn’t about school advertisements but more about what was being said in that ad (something to the tune of a child learning from a domestic help).

Anyhow, school advertisements have intrigued me for a while now. Never has India seen so diverse advertisements of schools. Ad agencies must seriously be thinking of ideas as is clear from the advertisements.

A look at the ads will tell you that each school is unique. As an educationist I feel swayed by what the schools claim themselves to be. ‘Learning beyond the Classroom’, ‘Be what you want to be’, ‘The science of education’, ‘Opening minds, Opening avenues’…so on and so forth. Long call from the times, I used to be in school. But I wonder if all the uniqueness in the ads translates into classrooms. This answer to this question merits a comprehensive survey.

If the India Today survey of top schools of the country (done a few years back) is anything to go by…there is little learning happening in schools. I don’t know if Education Initiatives(EI)
is taking on the initiative further.

Nevertheless, the purpose of this note is not to delve into learning and serious matters. It is just to have a look at the advertisements.

Sitting in educationist circles, we have often lamented the fact that parents rule the education and school world. Moving on, the parents don’t want a change in the education system and want the schools to concentrate on serious academics rather than experiment with experiential learning and project based methods. In fact, parents want conventional schools with good infrastructure.

This is directly in conflict with my deduction of the school advertisements. The fact that the school ads are claiming to be opening minds and being non-conventional actually means that the end consumers i.e parents actually want the schools to be non-conventional.

I don’t know what to make of it, but I am happy with the advertisements at least.

Another truth about the advertisement scenarios is that only the new schools need them and not the old ones. So, the stalwarts like DPS, Modern, Mothers and Bells don’t require it. I am yet to see an ad of these schools. Does it mean that once a school is established it doesn’t need to promote itself? So, once the admissions in these new schools is full house…they will stop advertising. Cool business.

I cut out advertisements of some of these schools, and showed it to a friend of mine (who is currently hunting a school for her child). She said that all schools want the words ‘Global’ ‘International’ and ‘World’ in their names and interestingly in their logos as well. Quite a few school logos have a globe in them.

Well…if the vision is global…then I guess, we will see much happening private schools soon.

As far as the advertisements are concerned…they will grow and innovate. More will come soon. With Birla, Manipal, Career Launcher, Educomp, S Chand and many others opening school chains…the sector will see more action.

No wonder then…school advertisements may muster a lecture or two at top B schools.

But I still think that school advertisements are a matter of research. You cant be selling education just like shampoos and soap. Can we?

P.S - Advertisement of hospitals is another interesting segment of research…Fortis, BLK, Columbia Asia et al

- Dr A P J is seen in every school these days.