For posterity, check out my profile on the TEDx Ahmedabad website (bottom of the page). Really need to start writing that presentation…

In Ocptober I’ll be speaking at the TEDx conference in Ahmedabad, India. Problem is, our presentation need to be absolutely amazing as if it is it may well end up being viewed on the internet over a million times. TED is a well renowned brand in the ‘ideas’ field, and just appearing on it is a good achievement. Good isn’t good enough though, we want it to be fantastic. Many thought-leaders watch TED talks and they are widely discussed on the internet and in print media. Put on a good show, and we might find ourselves engaging with some very interesting people.

To prepare for it, we’re going to hold a conference of our own in London on the 11th of September. That way I’ll get the opportunity to practice my speech in front of a large audience before hand. It will also give us some more exposure in the UK and, combined with the TEDx talk, will act as the beginning out of journey into an increasingly vocal and advocative role in the world of rural development and education.

Shivani is organising the London conference. Please get in touch if you’d like to help. You can see our Gumtree advert advertising for help here.

Ash got on a train to Mumbai last night, ready to see Ina and Mayuree (who we’re trying to force to work for Educate for Life – she’s too awesome for us to let anyone else have her)  and a few friends before flying back to the UK this afternoon and start out as a doctor proper next week.

Teddy is leaving tomorrow. He’s going with Deepak to stay at with his family, then see a teeny-weeny bit of India, then flying back to France.

Hunar Ghar is going to miss them, they’ve both been amazing over the last few months. Teddy has built three tremendous classrooms, done beautiful integrated landscaping and fixed umpteen extra tasks along the way. Ash has been forcing into place some systematic changes that will help us organise ourselves better, so we can make better schools. We’ve both got great feelings for the coming months.

And now, in all their splendor, please bear witness to the beauty and wonder that are the classrooms Teddy has designed and built. An informal school in a rural Indian villages requires that resources be rethought and redesigned. Why repeat when you can innovate? We think Teddy did a pretty good job, and we hope you do too.

A few days ago, there were a couple of emails that went back and forth between Ed, Ina and myself about two opposing ‘schools’ of thought regarding rural education in India, prompting this three part blog in which I’ll talk a little about formalised schooling, alternative education and some interesting schools Ina’s found to visit.

This is part 3. In the previous posts I talked a little about the failings of the formalised and alternative systems from my perspective. However, despite this, it seems there are a few places that are doing some exciting stuff that we’re thinking of visiting to learn from…below is an extract from an email Ina sent me regarding what she’s found so far.

1)      Sarang Hills (http://saranghills.org/):

-         Sarang is based in Kerala.

-         It works in a typical rural sector of India (more like a rural university!)

-         It does not follow any strict curriculum but functions on a truly experimental basis.

-         They can be helpful w..r.t. the topics that they cover at the campus, e.g. watershed management, natural farming, yoga, dance, martial arts, etc.

-         Besides this, their insight would definitely help us finding solutions to some of our recent problems. The founders of this school, Gopalkrishnan and Vijayalekshmi, themselves have been teachers and have struggled their way through immense difficulties to raise and run a school like Sarang J

2)      Sita school (no website available):

-         This school is based in Karnataka and is run by Jane Sahi for past 30 odd years!

-         It basically deals with the problem of drop-out children from the Government schools.

-         Though Jane and her family are more into art, the school follows the regular SSC curriculum upto 7th std.

-         It is a kannada medium school, which adopts innovative methods for teaching.

-         You can check the following links, which will give you some idea about the school:

http://www.learningnet-india.org/groups/karnataka/JaneSahi/index.php

http://www.sutradharindia.org/profilestore4/10784857138748

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# Both the above schools have the local language as the medium of instruction, which I see would be a point beneficial to us, especially to find out, how to deal with the problems of providing alternate education using the vernacular medium.

3)      Kanavu:

-         Though ‘Kanavu’ probably would be the best school to visit for our purpose, I have not been able to find any current contact details of it

-         Kanavu is also based in Kerala (Wayanad district) and it is a truly tribal school.

-         I read about it a few years back and know that their experiences could be really useful for Hunar Ghar considering it started and worked in the more or less the same setup.

-         Nevertheless, I will try to find out the details from one of my friends in Bangalore, who hails from Kerala

4)      Parikrama schools (http://www.parikrmafoundation.org/):

-         Parikrama learning centers are based in Bangalore and are actually more of ‘urban’ schools.

-         They basically work in the slum areas of Bangalore and follow ICSE curriculum as any other ‘normal’ school in India.

-         But what I think would prove to be helpful visiting these schools is that the socio-economic class that they are dealing with…

-         The children come from a typically compromised background and the education level of the parents is next to nil here.

-         Which means, the children at Parikrama aspiring to appear for the ICSE board examination at the end of 11^th std, must be facing the problems of non-conducive environment at home, non-exposure as well. I want to find out, how does Parikrama deal with these problems? What are the strategies they adopt to boost the moral of these children and keep motivating them to strive for a better and healthy education?

-         Parikrama also has community development on their agenda in addition to the education of the underprivileged sector.

-         It would be interesting to find out, how to do they integrate the innovative ways of teaching and learning at Parikrama.

5)      Grammangal (http://www.grammangal.org/):

-         I think, all of us are already  aware of Grammangal. They are based in Pune.

-         There are a couple of things wherein they could be useful to us.

-         I wish to find out more about their training programs for teachers, their education aids (material) and see, if we could make use of any of them.

-         In addition, Grammangal runs a Balwaadis as well a primary school at Aina village, which is a hardcore tribal area in Thane district of Maharshtra. I am planning to go to Dahanu to visit this.

-         It will also be interesting to find out more about their ‘Learning Home’ project in Pune city.

-         The founder of Grammangal, Ramesh Panse is considered to be a pioneer educationist of India :-0

6)      Aksharnandan:

-         It is based in Pune and was basically evolved from the concept of ‘home schooling’ for some of the children.

-         This school was founded by the interested parents, who did not want their children to go through the agonies of formal regular schooling.

-         Though the school still follows the normal curriculum of SSC board, they have come a long way adopting methods to make learning is truly enjoyable and valuable process for the children.

-         Of course, I have kept it on my list since it is easier for me to visit it (being in Pune!)

7)      Mahatma Gandhi Vidyamandir:

-         This school is based in Mumbai.

-         It is a regular SSC board school but I recently read an article about how innovatively they implement their curriculum and I found it quite astounding!

-         Even here, they believe in ‘Learning through experiments’ and use the textbooks only for providing guidelines.

-         I am sure, it would be worth visiting this school and documenting their methods for our benefit.

A few days ago, there were a couple of emails that went back and forth between Ed, Ina and myself about two opposing ‘schools’ of thought regarding rural education in India, prompting this three part blog in which I’ll talk a little about formalised schooling, alternative education and some interesting schools Ina’s found to visit.

This is part 2. The previous post introduced some of the problems with the formalised education system and suggested there was a void that may be filled by the alternative education movement.

This section offers my perspective on the alternative education movement and how it also seems to be failing the rural poor. Alternative schools are by definition more diverse in their methods & philosophy than the formalised education system, but I think there are some common(ish) characteristics that are worth being aware of:

-         Again most are based in urbanised and developed settings rather than the rural underdeveloped areas- the areas we believe the current system is failing most.

-         They can be quite elitist establishments designed for the upper & middle classes.

-         Often non-formal, means non-replicable as well, with limited sharing of what works, where and why- the emphasis seems to be on context to highlight the difference between themselves and conventional schooling.*

As can be seen from my slightly generalising list of characteristics, it doesn’t seem that the alternative education movement is making significant contributions for the benefit of rural education in developing countries either.

The picture I am trying to paint is one of systemic problems within formalised education as we know it, but a lack of systemic solutions coming from advocates, pedagogues and schools. If anything the alternative schools seem to shy away from these activities in order to create an alternative for the privileged, not those that need it.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t organisations working well in rural development and education to find small solutions, however they are rare, under-resourced and fragmented meaning what they have learned is often not shared or replicated elsewhere.

It’s not all bad new and failures though…In the next post I’ll share a little document written by Ina about some of the alternative education organisations we have found around India that we feel there is something to learn from…

*One quite separate part of the ‘alternative’ education movement believe the entire idea of educating people is defunct and that the education system is a hegemonic tool for manufacturing and manipulating people. This again we feel is something that is easy for the privileged to talk about, having already benefited from the same education system they complain about.