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Saturday, August 25, 2012

I feel I need to do more



It has always been the question of - Am I doing enough? Last 600 days, has been of immense journey - a journey which has made me travel across at least 10 new states of the country , interacting with few education secretaries, state project directors (SPDs) , agencies like UNICEF, USAID, SCERT's , a number of education consultants , Hundreds of teachers (I being lucky to train them, DIETS, BRC's and of course thousands of young kids through them, many of them being first generation learners.

Two most vivid images of this journey spaced apart with a period of 5-6 months which I would like to share are one that of a young teacher in a remote rural block of a district in Chattisgarh state , ensuring that her kids do not go from school without learning one new thing each day. Second one is that of a committed I.A.S officer , pushing heavy loads of file and finding an year old proposal to get a near dead project re-find life and make it up and working , so that the hundreds of children living in remotest of districts in Hindi Heartland get benefit of an innovative padagogy!

These two and many such little experiences, have made me realise that, I NOW understand the problems better and perhaps I have a more clear image on WHAT solutions might be!

I have a feeling that Individual centers of excellence or isolated efforts like the ones I am doing now, might not exactly be the solution.

Perhaps,

1. We need thousands of committed individuals like that rural young lady teacher - if we were to near our goal of 'eliminating educational inequity'.

2. We need to invest another hundreds of 'decision makers ' who understand the challenges and the need of pushing newer ideas better.

I feel I need to do More ..

Friday, August 3, 2012

The Hues of the NATION




It has been hectic 5 months. I have travelled so so many states all these months. Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and off course my Second Home Karnataka; that would be 10 states in 5 five months!

All of these travels have been work related, but never felt that I was working! Not that was work is always interesting for ‘an alleged’ workaholic like me, but certainly the fact that I could travel almost the length and breadth of the country, visit or pass by a number of cities, meet a number of people, observe a number of social and cultural patterns, understand a myriad of complexities that the country carry carries in herself, have certainly made this experience quite a rich rich one.

This experience has been so compelling that it has made me Blog about it after a good One year.....

Let me talk take you through the ‘Hues of this nation’…over a period of few days .. During next few days I shall write about the states, the cities, the people, the problems and perhaps the positive I could figure out in all of these ……

1. States

2. Cities

3. People

4. Problems

5. Positives

Do keep coming !