Slowly, perhaps imperceptibly but inexorably, awareness that quality education for all is the prerequisite of national development — and the uninterrupted publication of EducationWorld for the past six years may have something to do with it — is impacting itself upon the collective conscious. Consequently in spite of the worst efforts of the political class and other regressives who have a vested interest in mass illiteracy, education is steadily moving up the national agenda, even as champions of education are emerging from the shadows of public life. 

On the eve of commencement of the new academic year, EducationWorld profiles 50 individuals re-shaping the education landscape of the contemporary world’s largest child population (415 million Indians are below 18 years of age). The following list of people redefining Indian education was compiled after careful deliberation and nationwide consultation with eminent social scientists and educationists. 

Raja of quota

Arjun Singh, Union minister of human resources development. A former princeling of the principality of Manda in Madhya Pradesh, this septuagenarian has had a long and chequered career in Indian politics. A die-hard Nehruvian with unwavering loyalty to the Nehru-Gandhi family which has dominated Indian politics for the past half century, Singh is former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh (1980-85 and 1988-89) who moved to the Centre in 1985 and rose to the position of Union home minister in the Rajiv Gandhi administration (1984-89).

Sidelined during the Narasimha Rao, United Front and the NDA interregnum (1991-2004), Singh is believed to have played a major role in the emergence of Sonia Gandhi as leader of the Congress party in the new millennium, and was reportedly disappointed by the allocation of the HRD ministry portfolio in 2004. Singh has hit the media headlines and created turmoil in campus India by advocating reservation of an additional (in addition to the 22.5 percent reservation for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) 27 percent capacity in Central government promoted and aided institutions of higher education for OBCs (Other Backward Castes).

Moreover in December last year he piloted the 93rd Amendment to the Constitution which empowers the Central and state governments to decree discretionary quotas for SCs, STs and OBCs in all unaided or private education institutions, including schools. For better or for worse — probably the latter — Arjun Singh’s backdoor nationalisation will radically impact Indian education in the new millennium.

NCERT saviour

Dr. Krishna Kumar, director National Council for Education Research & Training (NCERT), Delhi. A former professor of education at Delhi University and widely acknowledged as an authority on foundational school education, Prof. Krishna Kumar was inducted into NCERT by the Congress-led UPA government immediately after it assumed office in May 2004. His brief was to undo the damage inflicted upon the school education system by the ham-fisted attempts of former Union HRD minister Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi to inject his hindutva agenda into the textbooks of NCERT, the country’s largest school texts publisher.

Since then Kumar has excised most of the right-wing Hindu propaganda and mythology from NCERT social science textbooks and has played a major role in writing a new National Curriculum Framework for School Education (NCFSE). Published in May 2005, NCFSE recommends secular, liberal and holistic education guidelines for schools and examination boards. 

Beleaguered knowledge czar

Satyen Gangaram (‘Sam’) Pitroda, chairman, National Knowledge Commission. Born into an OBC (other backward caste) family of a carpenter, Sam Pitroda is the architect of India’s astonishing telecom revolution of the past two decades which has multiplied the number of telephone connections from 5 million in 1990 to over 100 million currently. Like a large number of middle class youth, he was driven to emigrate to the US in the 1960s with the statutory $8 in his pocket. In the land of opportunity, Pitroda qualified as an electrical engineer and by patenting a large number of electrical switching systems became a self-made dollar millionaire. 

In the 1980s he heeded an inner call to return and help the country of his birth, and was appointed chairman of several technology development ‘missions’ (water management, edible oils industry, telecom etc) by prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. Following the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in 1990, Pitroda inevitably fell foul of the petty politicians of the Janata Dal regime, and returned to the US for over a decade. But in 2004 he responded to the call of Rajiv’s widow Sonia Gandhi and reportedly scripted the strategy which routed the ruling BJP in the 2004 general election.

In August 2005 prime minister Manmohan Singh appointed Pitroda chairman of a new, high-powered National Knowledge Commission with the brief to transform India into a knowledge society in the 21st century. But since then even as the commission was getting into its stride, Pitroda and the commission which advocated caution in decreeing additional caste-based quotas in institutions of higher education, are caught in the eye of the reservation storm with some politicians labelling Pitroda an “extra-constitutional authority”, and calling for disbandment of the commission.

Outspoken academic

Dr. Pratap Bhanu Mehta, director, Centre for Policy Research, (CPR) Delhi, hitherto member–secretary National Knowledge Commission. An alumnus of the western world’s most prestigious universities (Oxford and Princeton), former professor of law, philosophy and governance at the high-profile Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Delhi and currently director of CPR, an independent think-tank, Mehta is perhaps the most articulate, knowledgeable and fearlessly outspoken academic in higher education. 

On the issue of additional caste-based reservation in institutions of higher education, Mehta was the first member of the Knowledge Commission to take a (anti-reservation) public stand on the issue and has reportedly shaped the commission’s opinion on the contro-versial proposal. On May 22 expressing disappoint-ment with prime minister Manmohan Singh’s “lack of leadership” on the OBC reservation proposal, Mehta resigned from the Knowledge Commission. 

Adult literacy miracle workers

Fakir Chand Kohli, vice chairman emeritus and S.Ramadorai, managing director of Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. Acclaimed as the father of India’s booming computer software industry, during the three decades ending 2001, Kohli transformed the Mumbai-based TCS (annual revenue: Rs.9,727 crore; no. of employees: 35,000) into India’s largest IT and ITES (information technology enabled services) company. Currently TCS has offices in 34 countries around the world. In 2001, Kohli stepped down as chief executive of the company in favour of Ramadorai, under whose stewardship TCS has gone public and accelerated its scorching pace of growth.

Almost a decade ago, this duo constituted a high-powered research unit within the company to develop a computer-based functional literacy (CBFL) program to address the problem of mass adult literacy — over 350 million adult Indians cannot read or write their own names. In the new millennium, the company presented the nation a revolutionary adult literacy development programme. Based upon visual recognition of familiar words in the mother tongue, this audio-visual learning programme has demonstrated the capability to transform comprehensive illiterate adults into literate citizens able to read and understand daily newspapers, after a mere 40 hours of supervised study in informal learning centres (see cover story ‘Eureka! Adult literacy in 40 hours!’ EW July 2003).

Characteristically, the Union and state governments and even Indian industry have exhibited scant interest in this high-potential mass literacy programme. For over three years the customs and excise department refused to allow the import of used computers into the country without payment of customs duty. Following the clearance of this hurdle in 2004, the Union government has expressed no urgency in clearing and forwarding imported PCs to learning centres across the country, despite CBFL having already transformed over 56,000 absolute illiterates into functionally literate citizens.

Pratham progenitor

Madhav Chavan, promoter-chief executive of Pratham. A chemistry alumnus of Ohio State University, USA and former reader in physical chemistry at Mumbai University, Chavan experienced a Pauline conversion to the cause of primary education in 1994 and promoted Pratham, an NGO (non government organisation) committed to universalising and upgrading elementary education in India. Since then Pratham has emerged as the largest and most influential education NGO countrywide. Operating in 13 states, it has helped 1 million children become literate through its three week reading and basic maths programme.

Also active in teacher training, curriculum development and education research, Pratham recently (January 2006) published a first-of-its-kind Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), 2005. After a learning assessment survey conducted by 20,000 ASER volunteers in 485 of the country’s 600 districts, ASER 2005 reveals that the quality of primary education dispensed in rural India is so poor that almost half the students in class VIII are unable to exhibit the learning and comprehension levels they should have achieved in class II (see cover story ‘Taxes down the drain! Little learning in government school’ EW March). A fund-raiser extraordinaire, Chavan is also an influential member of the National Advisory Council hitherto chaired by Congress party president Sonia Gandhi.

Global medical education providers

Dr. president of the Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE) and Dr. Ranjan Pai, chief executive of the Manipal Engineering & Medical Group (MEMG). Since taking charge of MAHE following the death of the legendary Dr. T.MA Pai (1889-1979) who pioneered the concept of self-financed, privately promoted institutions of professional education and famously promoted the Kasturba Medical College, Manipal in 1953, Dr. Ramdas Pai has steered the growth and development of MAHE into India’s largest private provider of internationally acceptable medical, engineering and professional (nursing, pharmacy, business management, communications) education. 

MAHE was certified India’s first multi-disciplinary, multi-campus deemed (private) university in 1993. Over the past half century, the low profile MEMG has acquired a global reputation for medical education and at the invitation of the governments of Malaysia and Nepal, has established state-of-the-art medical colleges-cum-teaching hospitals in these countries. 

Today MEMG comprises 55 institutions of education with an aggregate enrollment of 86,000 students instructed by a 1,500-strong faculty in India. Moreover, Ranjan Pai, a graduate in medicine of MAHE who was appointed chief executive of MEMG in 2005, has finalised a blueprint for establishing a state-of-the-art professional education campus spread over 250 acres near Bangalore with a projected capital investment of Rs.400 crore.

Business savvy educationist

Dr. Ashok Misra, director, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B). An alumnus of IIT-Kanpur, Tufts and Massachusetts universities (USA) who served for over two decades on the faculty of IIT-Delhi prior to taking charge as director of IIT-B (estb. 1958), Misra has successfully transformed the institute which sprawls over 520 acres overlooking Powai lake, into the country’s most business-savvy institution of higher education. Currently this pioneer engineering institute comprises 12 departments, three schools, 11 centres, and 4 inter-disciplinary centres apart from the independent Kanwal Rekhi School of Information Technology and the Shailesh J. Mehta School of Business Management and has an aggregate student enrollment of 4,997 instructed by a faculty of 401.

The proven excellence of its graduates (average start-up salaries in 2006: Rs.4.09 lakh per year) apart, IIT-B is also the country’s # 1 institutional fund-raiser. Unusually for an indigenous education institution its schools of information technology and business are substantially self-financed, and during the past five years the institute’s highly systematised fund-raisers have collected over Rs.70 crore by way of donations from alumni and well-wishers around the world for infrastructure and campus development.

Acceptable capitalists

Nandan Nilekani, managing director, Infosys Technologies Ltd and Rohini Nilekani, promoter trustee of the Akshara and Arghyam Trust foundations and trustee Pratham. An alumnus of IIT-Bombay and member of the National Knowledge Commission, Nandan is widely credited with pioneering the practice of alumni donations to alma maters in India. A substantial shareholder in the blue-chip Infosys Technologies (market capitalisation: Rs.79,055 crore in April 2006), during the two decades past he has donated over Rs.15 crore to IIT-B for infrastructure development, besides generously funding several other education initiatives.

Likewise, Rohini has promoted the Akshara Foundation to improve learning outcomes in municipal schools in Bangalore and the Arghyam Trust Foundation to research ways and means to improve water availability to socio-economically disadvantaged citizens, with an aggregate endowment of over Rs.100 crore. With their generous investment of time and money in public causes related to development of the country.s human resources, this Bangalore-based power couple represents the acceptable face of Indian capitalism.

Knowledge-driven philanthropists

R. Narayana Murthy, chairman, Infosys Technologies Ltd and Sudha Murthy,promoter-chairperson, Infosys Foundation. The promoter-chairman and chief mentor of the blue-chip Infosys Technologies, commonly acknowledged by the business media and the pink dailies as India.s most valuable company in terms of market capitalisation (Rs. 79,055 crore in April 2006), NRNM has led a talented team of young professionals, to transform Infosys (revenue: Rs.9,521 crore; no. of employees 52,715) into a globally respected corporate with 460 clients around the world. In the process Infosys has transformed into arguably the country.s most knowledge-driven corporate.

Apart from the generous donations he and his fellow directors make to education causes and institutions, NRNM who is the incumbent chairman of the board of governors of IIM-Ahmedabad has also established a reputation as a champion and forthright commen-tator on education issues.

Whether it is English language learning, government interference with the autonomy of IIMs, additional reservation in institutions of higher education, Murthy has seized every occasion to articulate the pragmatic liberal viewpoint. Likewise Sudha who manages the Infosys Found-ation which receives an annual grant of Rs.1 crore from the company, has won widespread commendation for funding and facilitating elementary education in the deepest hinterlands of rural Karnataka.

Apex science institution chief

Dr. P. Balaram, director of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. An alumnus of Poona and Carnegie Mellon universities and IIT-Kanpur, and hitherto chairman of the institute’s hi-tech molecular biophysics unit, Balaram succeeded Dr. Goverdhan Mehta as director of IISc (estb. 1909 with a gift of 400 acres by the former Maharajah of Mysore and an endowment of Rs.30 lakh by J.N. Tata, founder patriarch of the business house of Tata) in July 2005. Rated among the world’s top 20 science research universities, currently the institute houses India’s best scientific research talent including 2,250 research (doctorate) and postgraduate students, a highly qualified faculty of 437 and 52 technical support staff spread over 41 research-intensive departments/ centres and units. The apex science education and research institution in India with an unwritten brief to supervise the development of science education countrywide, IISc receives an annual grant of Rs.82 crore from the Union government, a sum which is supplemented by the research project incomes of its Centre for Scientific and Industrial Consultancy.

Like most senior scientists countrywide, Balaram laments the shortage of adequately qualified faculty available to science colleges and universities. Since it is funded by the Union government, faculty pay packages at IISc are determined by New Delhi. Balaram’s challenge is to wrest greater administrative and financial autonomy for this provenly excellent institution of scientific research and learning.

Common school proponent

Anil Sadagopal, professor of education, Delhi University. A member of the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) and former dean of education at Delhi University, Sadagopal is one of the most influential Left educationists in the country. He was a dissenting member of the CABE committee chaired by Kapil Sibal, legal eagle and Union minister for Science & Technology which following the 86th amendment to the Constitution to make elementary education a fundamental right, drafted the Right to Education Bill 2005 which stipulates that private schools should admit at least 25 percent of children in class I from poor households in their neighbourhood.

In his dissenting note, Sadagopal contended that private schools should provide free education to 50 percent poor children from the neighbourhood, so their wealthier peers do not dominate them. Although this proposal has made him unpopular with the private school sector, he remains perhaps the most vocal proponent of the common school system.

ISB pace setter

Dr. M. Ram Mohan Rao, director Indian School of Business, Hyderabad. An alumnus of Anna, Cornell, and Carnegie Mellon universities, Rao began his career as a research assistant at Cornell in 1963. In 1975 he was invited to join the faculty of the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIM-B) where he rose to the position of director in 1997. It is widely acknowledged that it was during his term (1997-2002) that IIM-B flowered and established its reputation as a globally benchmarked institution of international standard.

In 2004, Rao was appointed dean and director of the Indian School of Business (ISB), promoted in 2001 by a stellar constellation comprising some of the biggest names in private sector Indian industry including the Ambani brothers, Kumaramangalam Birla and Ratan Tata at a cost of Rs.250 crore. Sprawled over 250 acres in Gachibowli on the periphery of Hyderabad, this state-of-the-art B-school was establ-ished in academic collaboration with the Kellogg School of Business at Wharton and Stanford Business School.

It offers the 273 postgrad (with minimum two years of industry experience) students enrolled in its one-year intensive diploma programme the best academic infrastructure of any B-school in India. Within five years of admitting its first batch of 130 students, ISB has metamorphosed into the country’s premier B-school with start-up pay packages of its graduates besting those of the six Central government promoted and subsidised IIMs, which are of considerably more mature vintage.

Primary education champion

Azim Premji, chairman of Wipro Ltd and the Wipro group of companies. Over three decades ago in the early seventies, Premji had to cut short his higher studies at Stanford University and return to India to take charge of the Mumbai-based Western India Vegetable Oil Products Co following the untimely death of his father. After extending its operations into the light bulbs business, in the early 1980s he famously diversified the company into the computer hardware manufac-turing industry. Since then although Wipro’s computer hardware business has almost withered away, its customised software business has prospered so mightily that Premji who owns 84 percent equity of this publicly listed Bangalore-based infotech major (sales revenue: Rs.8,066 crore; no. of employees: 53,000), has become the wealthiest individual in India in terms of net worth estimated at $13.3 billion (Rs.59,850 crore).

Coterminously, Premji particularly during the past decade, has identified the inadequacy and poor quality of primary education as the major impediment to India’s national development effort. To this end he promoted the Azim Premji Foundation (estb. 2000), to which he has endowed a sum variously reported at between Rs.50-65 crore. However the record of APF in upgrading the quality of primary education in India and the state of Karnataka in particular is sketchy. Mainly involved in teacher training and development, disappointingly APF has not initiated any great institution building or development project which many of Premji’s admirers were expecting of him. Nevertheless by tirelessly championing the cause of primary education, Premji is credited with having played a major role in rolling out the Union government’s Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (Education for All) programme countrywide.

NLS chief’s challenge

Dr. A. Jayagovind is director of the National Law School of India University (NLS). An alumnus of Mysore, Madras and Jawaharlal Nehru universities, Jayagovind came aboard NLS ab initio in 1988 to head the international law and WTO studies faculty. In 2003, he succeeded Dr. Mohan Gopal as director of NLS, India’s first full-time, wholly residential law school which offers a five-year study programme to its 440 students instructed by a full-time faculty of 25.

Right from the start, NLS has been a great success and its graduates are rated among the world’s best trained law students. Every year over 5,600 Plus Two school leavers write its common entrance test held in May, of whom only 80 are admitted. Unsurprisingly NLS graduates are in great demand in industry and within the new generation of American style law firms mushrooming in India. Last year all its 80 graduates were snapped up by industry and the legal fraternity at an average annual remuneration of Rs.6 lakh. Currently Jayagovind’s challenge is to infuse NLS grads with institutional management skills required to clear the massive case arrears backlog and endemic delays, a defining characteristic of India’s crumbling legal system.

Design revolutionary

Dr. Darlie O. Koshy, director of the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. An alumnus of Kerala University and IIT-Delhi, Koshy served a long stint (1987-2000) in the National Institute of Fashion Technology, Delhi where he rose to head marketing management. As such he played a major role, prior to taking charge at NID, in transforming NIFT into one of Asia’s most reputable fashion design schools.

In acknowledgement of his stellar contribution to the growth and development of NIFT, in the year 2000 Koshy was appointed director of NID (estb: 1961), by common consensus the pioneer and most respected product and graphics design institute in India. Comprising four major faculties — industrial, communication, textiles and apparel and exhibition design — despite its modest aggregate enrollment of 650 students and 60 faculty, NID has created over 50 brand identities for Indian industry including SBI, Hindustan Lever, Indian Airlines, among others and played a major role in impacting the importance of design upon Indian industry.

Today with Indian products and corporates becoming increasingly acceptable in sophisticated western markets, a substantial measure of the credit needs to be given to NID, which has engineered an accelerating design revolution under Koshy’s leadership.

On Koshy’s drawing board is a finished plan to establish NID campuses in Gandhinagar and Bangalore.

Education watchdog

Dr. Parth J. Shah, president of the Centre for Civil Society (CCS), Delhi. An alumnus of Auburn University (USA) and former professor of economics at Michigan University, Shah promoted CCS in 1999. Since then this NGO has transformed into one of the country’s top think-tanks for propagating liberal causes. In particular CCS has been very active in researching Indian education and suggesting ways and means to improve standards and systems of elementary schooling.

Earlier this year, when the draft Right to Education Bill, 2005 was being debated in Parliament and beyond to give effect to the proposed Article 21-A of the Constitution which mandates free and compulsory education for all children aged six-14 years, CCS produced a detailed ‘legislative analysis’ of the Bill under Shah’s supervision which prompted the Union government to wholly revise its provisions. Moreover recently after continuous criticism from CCS, the Delhi state government abolished an archaic provision which required private school promoters to obtain an ‘essentiality certificate’ from the state government certifying that a new school was needed in the district where it is proposed to be sited.

Also the author of Law, Liberty and Livelihood (2005) which highlights the harassment of street vendors and citizens working in the informal sector of the economy by policemen and local government officials, under Shah’s leadership CCS has emerged as an intelligent and fearless protector of citizens’ economic rights and freedoms.

KVS model leader

Ranglal Jamuda, IAS commissioner, Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS). A graduate of Ravenshaw College, Cuttack (Utkal University) with an MBA from the University of Hull (UK), Jamuda took charge as commissioner of KVS in September 2004 following postings in Orissa in the power sector, and as higher education and revenue secretary of the state government. Initially promoted by the Central government as schools for its employees, KVs have since emerged as model government schools with a reputation for academic excellence. Consequently 23 percent of the 900,000 students in 928 KVs countrywide instructed by a massive teacher task force of 20,000, are children from non-government households.

To add to the 928 Kendriya Vidyalaya schools in India — and three abroad (Nepal, Russia and Iran) — Jamuda has drawn up plans for 50 new schools in the coming year. The commissioner is justifiably proud of his schools’ pass percentage in the CBSE class X school leaving exam (89.85 percent) and class XII (92.4 percent) in 2004-05, as against the average 50 percent and 54.5 percent of government schools in general.

With its brand reputation on a par with IITs and IIMs, KV schools have emerged as models for all government schools to emulate.

White Revolution leader-educator

Dr. Verghese Kurien, chairman Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA), Gujarat. The designer and architect of the White Revolution aka Operation Flood which transformed chronically milk-deficient India into the world’s largest producer of lactose and dairy products, and progenitor of the Anand-model of farmers’ milk cooperatives who has attained legendary status in his lifetime, Kurien is also the incumbent founder-director of IRMA. Like its promoter, IRMA (estb. 1979) which offers its 250 students instructed by a faculty of 27 postgraduate qualifications in rural management on its sylvan 60-acre campus in Anand in rural Gujarat, is sui generis. Most of its graduates are absorbed into the hundreds of milk marketing cooperatives modelled on GCMMF (Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation) founded by Kurien, but from which he was recently ousted in a boardroom coup after a 30- year plus reign as its chairman. However of late with corporates venturing into the food processing and agri-industry, IRMA graduates are hot property with an average annual remuneration of Rs.4.38 lakh (in 2005).

Yet Kurien’s contribution to Indian education is much greater than the promotion of IRMA. He taught India’s historically short-changed milk producers to become business savvy and in the process catalysed India’s as yet unreplicated White Revolution.

Balachandran.s dream

Prof. Bala V. Balachandran, founder and honorary dean, Great Lakes Institute of Management (GLIM), Chennai. J.L Kellogg distinguished professor at the Stuart Graduate School of Business (SSB) of the Illinois Institute of Technology, Balachandaran established GLIM — Tamil Nadu’s first internationally benchmarked B-school — in Chennai in April 2004. The institute’s first batch of 130 students has graduated with a 100 percent placement record. Balachandran was also actively involved in the planning and promotion of the Rs.250 crore trail-blazing Indian School of Business, Hyderabad (estb. 2000).

An alumnus of Annamalai and Dayton (USA) universities who was awarded a Ph D in industrial administration by Carnegie Mellon University, Balachandran’s extensive teaching and corporate consultancy experience and contributions to the development of the science of business management have won him numerous scholastic honours, awards and fellowships including the Padma Shri in 2001. In addition to running GLIM and teaching at SSB in the US, he also runs Allsec Technologies, a thriving call centre in Chennai.

With eminent leaders of corporate India on GLIM’s advisory council and visiting faculty from the best B-schools abroad, it won’t be long before Balachandran realises his dream of GLIM being rated among the top three B-schools in India.

Doon internationalist

Kanti Bajpai, headmaster, The Doon School, Dehra Dun. A former professor of international affairs at Jawaharlal Nehru University and a popular choice of TV news channels to comment on foreign policy issues, in his new avatar as the headmaster of perhaps India.s most famous all-boys boarding school, Bajpai is all set to infuse his international outlook and academic experience into his alma mater. The blue-chip Doon School, which currently boasts an enrollment of 500 students, has shaped the character of some of the country’s leading lights including former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, authors Vikram Seth and Amitav Ghosh, and Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan.

This self-described “foreign service brat” who described his appointment in 2003 after a global headhunt as “a dream come true”, taught political science at M.S. University, Baroda and Wesleyan University, USA before joining the JNU faculty in 1994. Bajpai faces the daunting challenge of maintaining this CISCE-affiliated institution’s position as India’s # 1 boarding school against increasing competition from a new genre of five-star international schools boasting affiliations such as the International Baccalaureate and British ‘A’ levels, and offering mind-boggling sports and residential facilities.

IIM autonomy activist

Dr. Bakul Dholakia, director, Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A). An alumnus of M.S University, Baroda where he taught econometrics prior to signing up with IIM-A in 1992, and after teaching industrial economics for seven years (1992-97), Dholakia was appointed director of IIM-A, India’s very first B-school established in collabo-ration with Harvard University and whose campus was designed by the renowned American architect Louis Kahn. Since it was promoted in 1961, this pioneer institution of business management education has acquired a global reputation for the excellent quality of its graduates.

In recent years with the IIMs which were promoted and are funded by the Central government having attracted the unwarranted attentions of successive ministers presiding over the parent Union human resource ministry who have prescribed lower fees and special quotas for backward castes, the autonomy of these institutes is in jeopardy. A committee of IIM directors under Dholakia’s leadership is fighting hard to devise ways and means to ensure the administrative and financial autonomy of these blue-chip B-schools, which by common consensus are national assets. Meanwhile perhaps with this objective in mind, on May 13 IIM-A formally announced the establishment of India’s first B-school abroad by inaugurating its Asian Centre in collaboration with the Essec Business School, France, in Singapore. The Essec Asian Centre will admit its first batch of postgraduate students in April 2007.

Distinguished science cassandra

Dr. C.N.R Rao, chairman, Scientific Advisory Council to the prime minister and president, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore. In informed academic circles there is considerable despair about declining standards of science education and the growing inability of the science teaching community to generate student interest in the study of the sciences. The country’s most high profile scientist who seldom misses an opportunity to warn about this infirmity of the education system, Rao isn’t afraid to speak his mind on this important issue. According to him, an incremental number of colleges across the country are closing down science faculties, and because of neglect of research, the IITs are “being converted into ordinary engineering colleges”. According to a latest report in The Hindu (May 20) Rao intends presenting “facts relating to the neglect of science” to the prime minister.

The prime minister and the public would do well to heed Rao’s warnings because he is perhaps India’s most distinguished scientist. An alumnus of Mysore, Benares Hindu and Purdue universities, Rao began his career as professor of chemistry at IIT-Kanpur and rose within academia to the apex position of director of the prestigious Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore (1984-94). This indefatigable septuagenarian is currently a visiting professor at Purdue, Oxford and Cambridge universities and widely acknowledged as one of the world’s foremost authorities on solid state and materials chemistry.

Unmatched institution builder

Professor N. S. Ramaswamy, promoter-trustee of the Centre for Action, Research and Technology (CARTMAN) and Indian Heritage Academy, Bangalore. Currently engaged in propagating the message of animal welfarism and ethics in business, the trust derives its name from Ramaswamy’s many years of successfully researching the perfectly designed bullock cart, which eases the burden of animal power which to this day provides over 20 percent of the energy needs of rural India.

However octogenerian Ramaswamy’s contribution to Indian education extends far beyond the boundaries of the Cartman Trust. His claim to fame is that he has conceptualised, constructed and operationalised two of India’s top-rated B-schools — the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai (estb. 1965) and the Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore (1972) as also the National Institute for Technical and Industrial Engineering (NITIE —1968), commonly ranked among contemporary India’s top ten engineering colleges. This feat of building high quality and durable institutions of higher education is unmatched by any other individual in Indian academia.

Education leadership guru

Ashish Rajpal, co-founder and managing director, iDiscoveri India Pvt Ltd, Delhi. An alumnus of XLRI, Jamshedpur and Harvard University where he acquired a Masters in education, Rajpal was marketing director of the Paris-based processed foods and consumer goods multinational Danone, until 2001, when he returned to India to rejuvenate iDiscoveri, promoted in 1996 by a group of B-school and IIT graduates. Described as “a social enterprise with a mission to renew education in India” by devising contemporary teacher development, education leadership, pedagogy innovations and cultural transformation programmes, the company has got off to a flying start. It has enrolled over 2,000 teachers countrywide in its in-service training programmes and reached over 200 school principals with its education leadership initiative.

The firm recently inaugurated its iDiscoveri Center for Education and Enterprise offering a postgraduate diploma in innovative teaching and education leadership. 

These activities apart, the company also runs a successful division in enterprise education for school and college promoters and its Youreka outdoor education programme for children. Driven by Rajpal and a phalanx of highly trained and motivated education professionals unencumbered by the dead hand of government, iDiscoveri offers the exciting promise of changing national mindsets and attitudes toward education.

Child rights activist

Ingrid Srinath, chief executive of CRY (Child Rights and You). With an annual disbursement budget of over Rs.13 crore, five offices countrywide and 170 full-time employees, CRY (formerly Child Relief & You) is one of the largest child welfare non-government organisations in India. A fund-raiser extraordinaire who combines passion with a penchant for reeling out bone-chilling child deprivation statistics, Srinath signed up with CRY in 1998 and has been instrumental in transforming the organisation into a children’s rights advocacy NGO. “In over 2,500 poor and marginalised communities in 21 states, CRY has inspired the incredible change that is possible when children, parents and local governance come together to ensure children’s rights,” says Srinath.

An economics and statistics alumna of Elphinstone College, Mumbai with an MBA from Indian Institute of Management-Calcutta, Srinath acquired considerable experience in organisational management in advertising agencies Lintas and Trikaya Grey (1986-1998), before signing up with CRY as its director of resource mobilisation. Six years later she was promoted to the office of the chief executive.

Currently CRY provides financial and non-financial support to 157 voluntary organisations across the country and has impacted the lives of over 1.4 million children.

DPS driving force

Narendra Kumar, chairman, Delhi Public School Society (DPS) Delhi. The promoter- director of Vikas Publishing House, once India’s largest book publishing firm but which has gone into relative obscurity, Kumar has metamorphosed into the driving force and chairman of DPS Society which runs 130 Delhi Public Schools with an aggregate enrollment of 150,000 students in India and abroad. Run on the franchisee model with the first DPS on Mathura Road, Delhi prescribing the minimum infrastructure norms and curriculum, DPS schools have established an excellent national reputation for delivering standardised secondary education of high quality, much appreciated by India’s rising new middle class. Indeed the DPS model has proved so popular that DPS schools have been established as far afield as Nepal, Bangladesh, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and several Middle East countries.

With Kumar ready, willing and able to establish working partnerships with state governments to upgrade and manage their schools across the country, the DPS model offers a great opportunity to state governments to radically improve their overwhelmingly non-performing schools characterised by poor learning outcomes. Although it’s unlikely that Kumar’s offer will be accepted, it is a measure of the rapid countrywide growth of DPS which until 1972 had only its pioneer Mathura Road school to showcase.

School education reformer

Dr. Ashok Ganguly, chairman of CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education). An alumnus of Allahabad University, who heads the largest pan-India examination board with 8,278 affiliated schools, Ganguly has initiated exemplary academic and exam evaluation reforms in secondary education. They include introduction of novel subjects like defence studies, fashion technology, mass media, genetic engineering and entrepreneurship; elimination of the sudden death examination in favour of a continuous grading system from 2008. Moreover recently the CBSE board has ordered reduction of the textbook load in children’s school bags. The pace of reform within this pace-setting board has accelerated in the past two years with the rising popularity of competitive international examination boards such as the International Baccalaureate and Cambridge International Examinations among India’s top-tier schools.

Designated an autonomous body, CBSE is under the direct control of the Union ministry of human resource development and is obliged to prescribe NCERT textbooks for its 8,278 affiliated schools. Though the reclusive Ganguly is currently under investigation by the Central Vigilance Commissioner for flouting service rules and allegedly promoting textbooks of private publishers, he is likely to overcome and continue to ring in winds of academic change in India’s largest examination board whose affiliated schools have a combined enrollment of over 4 million students countrywide.

Pre-school education pioneer

A.K. Khetan, chief executive of Zee Interactive Learning Systems (ZILS), Mumbai. A former chartered accountant who worked with several corporates including Rallis India and Multi Channel India Pvt Ltd, quality education is Khetan’s mission statement. Following his appointment as CEO of ZILS in 2003, he has revived and reactivated this company promoted in 1999 by satellite and cable television pioneer Subhash Chandra.

Today ZILS delivers learning solutions and training to several segments of society through its divisions viz, ZIMA (Zee Institute of Media Arts), ZICA (Classical and Digital Animation Training Academy), Zed CA (Career Academy) and Zee E-learning (online education). Under Khetan’s leadership, in 2004 the company successfully diversified into pre-primary education under the brand name Kidzee. Since then, the franchise model Kidzee has expanded its imprint to 350 nursery schools across India. With plans to expand ZILS’ education services to cover the entire 0-16 age group, Khetan is likely to play an increasingly important role in shaping the contours of school education in the near future.

Child-centric education advocate

Prof. Yash Pal, chairman, National Steering Committee, National Curriculum Framework for School Education 2005. An alumnus of Punjab University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA who spent over 25 years teaching at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, this octogenarian scientist-educationist has served as chief consultant to the Planning Comm-ission; secretary, department of science and technology; chairman, National Institute of Design, and chairman, University Grants Commission. During his 45-year career in academia, Pal has played a pivotal role in formulating national education, particularly science education and technology policies. 

In 2004, Pal was appointed by the Congress-led UPA government as chairman of the 35-member National Steering Committee which supervised 21 national focus groups in authoring the path-breaking National Curriculum Framework for School Education (NCFSE) 2005. NCFSE 2005 acknowledges to being strongly influenced by Yash Pal’s monograph Learning without Burden (1993), which advocated child-centric instead of textbook-centric education for children.

Culturally-rooted educationist

Dr. Y.G Rajalakshmi Parthasarathy, dean and director, Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan Senior Secondary School, Chennai. A renowned teacher, administrator and patron of arts and culture, octogenarian Y.G. Rajalakshmi Parthasarathy (popularly known as Dr. YGP), is a pioneer of progressive and culturally-rooted education in the port city of Chennai. In 1958, when most middle class children in Chennai clamoured for admission in Christian missionary schools, YGP started Bala Bhavan with just 13 children. This modest initiative has since grown to four PSBB schools, affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), offering value-based education to 7,300 students instructed by 500 teachers. Today PSBB schools are Chennai’s most admired secondary education institutions, renowned for rigorous scholarship.

One of the first women postgraduate diploma holders in journalism who served briefly in The Mail and The Hindu, YGP read for her B. Ed degree from Mysore University at age 45, followed by an M.Ed and Master’s in history and a doctorate from Madras University. “In this new age of technology we need to inculcate humanitarian values in our children, even as we mould them to become successful citizens. As teachers we need to accord greater attention to the environment, prevent cruelty to animals and encourage children to be caring and giving,” she says.

Technology education innovator

Professor M.S. Ananth, director, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M). An alumnus of AC College of Technology and University of Florida, Ananth signed up with the department of chemical engineering at IIT-Madras in 1972 where he steadily rose up the faculty ranks prior to taking charge as director in 2001. Under his policy of infrastructure development, innovation and incubation, IIT-M has leaped forward in media ratings to a pre-eminent position even as its Strategic Plan Vision 2010 promises better things to come.

Established by the Union government in 1959, IIT-M houses 13 departments, ten advanced academic research centres and over 100 well-equipped laboratories for teaching and research. The institute offers undergrad and postgraduate engineering and technology study programmes to 4,082 students instructed by a faculty of 318. This academic year (2006-2007), IIT-M will cross another milestone by inaugurating its department of humanities and social sciences which will offer a unique, five-year integrated Master of arts degree programme comprising developmental studies, economics and English.

Moreover under Ananth’s leadership, IIT-M has drawn up a blueprint to establish an industrial research park contiguous to its campus with a seed investment of Rs.100 crore.

Also read: Leaders who can revive Indian education

AICTE chief

Prof. Damodar Acharya, chairman AICTE (All India Council for Technical Education), Delhi. An alumnus of Regional Engineering College, Rourkela and IIT-Kharagpur, Acharya took charge of AICTE in May last year.