With 20 years experience of spearheading educational initiatives in several countries across the world, Ken Jarman, is the newly-appointed (March 2004) principal of the Ecole Mondiale World School (EMWS) — one of Mumbai’s two international schools offering International Baccalaureate (IB) as well as the IGCSE study syllabuses. Promoted in 2003 by businessmen Pradeep Sadia and V.D. Goenka on a two-acre site in the upscale suburb of Juhu with an estimated investment of Rs.100 crore, the school admitted its first batch of 130 students (kindergarten-class XI) in July this year.

According to Jarman, the distinguishing feature of Mumbai’s mint new international school is that it offers the full menu of IB programmes as well as “outstanding facilities”. “The quality of our facilities is extremely high. We have five wholly contemporary, fully equipped science labs, three state-of-the-art computer labs, two libraries, indoor sports facilities, multipurpose auditorium, an indoor gym and a 25-metre indoor swimming pool apart from numerous studios and 40 class-rooms,” says Jarman. Tuition fees range from Rs.3.9 lakh per year for primary school to Rs.5.9 lakh for secondary school.

An alumnus of the Teacher’s Training College, Brisbane (Australia), Jarman began his career as a teacher at age 18 in 1966 and served in several schools across the sixth continent before taking charge as headmaster of one of Brisbane’s largest schools with 1,000 students on its muster roll in 1990.

It was then that he made a resolution to export his teaching skills and experience abroad. In 1993 he was appointed headmaster of the largest secondary school in Papua New Guinea and three years later headed for Cameroon as director of the American School there. In 1998 he was offered the position of principal of the Suzhon International School in Suzhon (near Shanghai), China. After completion of his three-year contract in China, in 2001 Jarman headed for Namibia as principal of the International School, Windhoek.

“The standards and values of international schools can be easily replicated in Saudi Arabia, Finland or India,” opines Jarman. “An international curriculum, well-qualified staff and continuous teacher development are hallmarks of genuine international schools. EMWS fulfills all these criteria.”

Jarman predicts a bright future for Ecole Mondiale. “The government of India has drawn up ambitious plans to transform India into the world’s leading nation by 2020. High quality education is the pre-requisite of such a transformation. EMWS offers the most complete education for any family wishing their children to access the world’s best university education and employment,” he says.

Little wonder Mumbai is rolling out the red carpet.

Mona Barbhaya (Mumbai)

Pre-school children’s champ

Early Childhood Matters reads one of the many posters on the walls of Prof. K. Shanmugavelayutham’s cluttered cabin in the social work department of Loyola College, Chennai. They proclaim his chief interests — early childhood care and education, implemen-tation of child rights and upliftment of under-privileged children. Currently Shanmugavelayutham is serving his second term as convenor of TN-FORCES (Forum for Crèche and Childcare Services in Tamil Nadu) the state chapter of a national network of 114 organisations with eight state chapters. Set up in 1989, TN-FORCES is committed to improving the lives of women employed in the unorganised sector and their children. “Our objective is to address the needs of children below six years who are the most vulnerable and voiceless group in society and work for their holistic development,” says Shanmugavelayutham, who has been working with marginalised women and young children over the past two decades.

Apart from crusading for early childhood care and education, Shanmugavelayutham, who is currently a reader in the department of social work in Loyola College, has his hands full, teaching and guiding research scholars at Loyola. He has a string of degrees to his credit — B.Sc (botany), MA (social work) and BL (bachelor of law) from Madras University; MA in psychology from Annamalai University; M.Ed from Madurai Kamaraj University, MBA from Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), M Phil from Delhi University and Ph D from Benaras Hindu University. He has authored two books, 12 research papers and is the honorary director of the B.V.S.N. Murthy Centre for Special Children which provides education and vocational rehabilitation to 50 mentally challenged children.

Right now one of Shanmugavela-yutham’s prime concerns is to ensure that early childhood education reaches every child even in remote rural areas. “Unlike developed countries where the focus is on early childhood education, in India, the government has neglected this sector in spite of the fact that 80 percent of brain development takes place before attainment of the age of six. The government’s Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) has reached only 40 percent of children in this age group and lacks quality. The rest who can pay are catered by mushrooming private sector nursery schools most of which are unregulated, lack infrastructure and are also of poor quality,” he says.

One of the five Indians who attended the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in Geneva in September this year, the good professor strongly advocates every child’s ‘right to participation’ and incorporation of child-friendly participatory curriculums in pre-schools. Under his leadership, TN-FORCES is all set to address these issues by organising trainers’ training progra-mmes and implementing the playway-cum-activity based curriculum in all government and private nursery schools in the state. Other equally important issues impacting pre-school children are also high up on his agenda. These include lobbying the government to set up crèches for children of construction workers near their workplaces; canvassing for maternity entitlements for women workers; addressing issues of child labour; development of anganwadis and bal-wadis and propagating breast-feeding.

“Our goal is to bring children under six to the centre of the agenda of planners, policymakers and political parties and we will continue to build pressure for change,” says the indefatigable Shanmuga-velayutham.

Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)

Strategists for the disabled

For the past 18 years, the Lucknow–based husband-wife team of Ram and Mridu Goel has been advocating the cause of rights for the disabled through a sustained campaign of information, rights and awareness. Working through the 1986-born Indian Association of the Handicapped (IAH) an entity that has 100 disabled members on its rolls today, the Goels have been engaged in a prolonged war with the state government demanding that rights promised to the differently abled be delivered.

“We have chosen not to be typical activists handing out wheelchairs or organising functions for the disabled. We believe it is more important to impart information and build awareness,” says Ram, a physiotherapy graduate of Lucknow’s King George’s Medical University and winner (1993) of the Kesler International Fellowship Award (given worldwide to one person each year by the New Jersey based Kesler Institute for Rehabilitation Inc).

Though orthopedically challe-nged, Mridu, a banker who won the President’s Award for best bank employee in 1997, avers that greater disabilities exist in the minds of people. “Unless the ‘pity the disabled’ mindset is transformed, there is little hope that the physically challenged will be given the opportunity to prove them-selves in an enabling competitive environment,” she says.

The Goels’ strategy is simple. They thoroughly read government orders and bills relating to special provisions for the handicapped, lobby the authorities to implement what has been promised in them, dispense information on the rights of the disabled over the telephone and in person, sensitise students and the bureaucracy to their special needs. The duo runs a popular and acclaimed, 45 minute sensitisation programme for students of classes IX-XII using the play-way method to give children a feel of what it is to be disabled. So hands are tied and eyes blindfolded before children are asked to perform simple everyday tasks.

The Goel couple’s efforts have borne some fruit by way of government orders on ending routine transfers of people with disabilities or those who have disabled dependents; five percent reservation in all parking areas for the disabled, and renewal of cinema hall licenses only if they provide ramps for the disabled. The country’s first disabled-friendly public park in Lucknow is also a result of their persistence. “We don’t believe in confrontation. Persistent persuasion works wonders in putting across a viewpoint,” says Mridu Goel. Next on the cards? A national disability network to bring NGOs and individuals working in the field together. The network, divided into five zones meets at least once a year and publishes Handinews â€” an annual newsletter — under the aegis of IAH.

The possibility that the cash-strapped IAH may die out with them is a real and somewhat depressing prospect. But Mridu Goel is inclined to be optimistic. “The awareness that we are building on the rights of the disabled could inspire others to work for this cause. We are hopeful that a second line of command will soon be built up,” she says.

Until then the Goels soldier on.

Vidya Pandit (Lucknow)

Coats’ creative initiative

Madura Coats Pvt Ltd’s school initiative programme, Anchor Educational Service (AES) is going great guns. The school contact programme, part of the marketing initiatives of Anchor (a global brand of embroidery threads and other craft products), now covers over 800 schools and 400,000 children. “Promotion and sale of Anchor threads and embroidery products in schools across the country has always been part of our plan to introduce children to embroidery at a young age, in the hope that they sustain the hobby in their later years. In 2000, we decided to go one step forward and formally launched AES to enhance creative thinking among school children through needlecraft,” explains Venkatesh Parthasarathy, product manager of Anchor who also heads AES.

Under AES, the company organises a wide array of activities, which include creativity development workshops, embroidery training programmes, intra and inter school contests and craft teacher meets. The company also publishes a quarterly magazine — Needle and Thread – aimed at embroidery enthusiasts and beginners. “Psychological research has proved that the right side of the brain is responsible for creative and lateral thinking while the left side is responsible for logical thinking and rote learning. Our current schooling system lays more stress on academics and is biased towards development of the left side of the brain thus providing very little exercise to the right brain. Through the AES program, we hope to trigger a series of creative impulses in the right brain which in turn will ensure the holistic development of children,” adds Parthasarathy, an alumnus of Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi University.

Customised kits currently being sold at schools are moderately priced between Rs.50 and Rs.450. Participating schools are in turn offered a 20-25 percent margin on sales of these kits. Using these embroidery kits children learn to make calendars, wall hangings, lunch mats, greeting cards, embroidered cushion covers etc. “Contrary to popular percep-tion it’s not only girls who work with our kits. Nearly one third of kit volumes come from boys,” says Parthasarathy.

Encouraged by enthusiastic responses to the AES programme, Parthasarathy has drawn up ambitious plans for the future. “Our primary objective is to stimulate and streamline craft teaching in schools. To this end our immediate aim is to compile a database of craft teachers and resource persons across the country and network with them through direct marketing. We also intend to conduct state and national level embroidery workshops for craft teachers and school children. Creativity is too important a subject to be left entirely to the teaching profession,” says Parthasarathy.

In a school system in which memorisation and rote learning is the norm, that’s a massive understatement.

Srinidhi Raghavendra (Bangalore)

 

Powerhouse social reformer

Social activist, scholar, author and a pioneer of the national women’s movement, Dr. Mohini Giri is a powerhouse social reformer. Daughter-in law of India’s former president, the late V.V. Giri, she is proficient in nine languages and was awarded her doctorate by G.B. Pant University following a postgrad degree in ancient Indian history from Delhi University. The prime moving force of a slew of NGOs including Guilds Of Service, War Widows Association, Delhi State Social Welfare Advisory Board, Giri is also the founder trustee of the Women’s Initiative for Peace in South Asia (WIPSA).

However, it’s the “neglected sphere” of education which is her major preoccupation. As a member of the council of the Social Outreach Foundation (SOF), an NGO set up seven years ago to give a leg up to under-privileged children by securing them admission into top-grade mainstream schools, Giri has helped scores of children from poor households get scholarships in several of Delhi’s upmarket private schools including the DPS chain, Amity International, Ryan International and Apeejay. “In a country like India, where a huge chasm divides the haves from the have-nots, it’s imperative to correct social imbalances,” says Giri.

Author of several books on social development (Exploitation of Angels, Emancipation and Empowerment of Women and Living Death), Giri is all set for the release of her fourth book —Contemporary Social Problems (Gyan Publications) — which “takes a hard look at the fundamental problems that plague Indian society and how we can better the system”.

Just back from a grueling month-long camp in Kashmir, where she helped rehabilitate several militancy-affected widows in Kargil by providing them employment and education for their children, Giri’s daily schedule is perennially packed. “If we are to upgrade ourselves to first-world status we can’t remain indifferent to the deprivation around us. We need to think positively and become champions of change,” she says.

With a life so rich, it’s hardly surprisingly that Dr. Giri’s office in Delhi’s Qutub Institutional Area is studded with glittering national and international trophies and awards, including the Mahila Shiromani Award, World Peace Award, South Asian Parliaments Towards Solidarity Award, Rajiv Gandhi Excellence Award, Air Force Wives’ Association Award, Bharat Nirman Award for Outstanding Social Work among numerous others. “Everybody is blessed with just one lifetime,” philosophises Giri, “What matters is how much you’ve been able to pack into it.”

Giri has certainly packed a lot of public interest work into her life. And there’s more to come.

Neeta Lal (Delhi)