April 2005

From the Editor's Desk

Hello readers!
Shubho Nababarsha to all of you. It is beginning of another Bengali year, and a new financial year as well. Hope we can keep doing meaningful work and all of us stay in a loop for exchanging ideas and thoughts, and gain from each other in the process. Do write in any interesting work or interaction which you would love to share with us.
- Anupama (Editor)

A workshop with a difference

Vikramshila acts as the training and resource group for three CRY supported units in the states of M.P. Rajasthan and UP called ERG (education resource groups). As part of the capacity building of these groups we had organised a curriculum analysis workshop in December 2003 conducted by Dr. Janaki Rajan and Dr. Vinod Raina. What followed was that the state units did a preliminary analysis of the language textbooks of classes 2-5 in terms of their defects as well as working towards an alternative to it.

Vikramshila conducted the second phase of its workshop on curriculum analysis at Gandhi Peace Foundation, New Delhi, on 21st and 22nd March. This workshop built on the same theme as in the first one as also, analysed the work done by the ERGs, which deal with issues like religious and caste bias, gender bias, present developmental paradigm, along with the issue of developing of alternative lessons that would be more appropriate. Interesting sessions took place where inputs came from people like, Dr. Janaki Rajan (SCERT), Dr. Arjun Dev, Dr. Apoorvanand (Department of Hindi, Delhi University), Dr. Mukul Priyadarshini (Department of Elementary Education, Lady Sriram College), Purva Bharadwaj (Nirantar), NCERT, Mr. Rohit Dhankar (Digantar), Karan Tyagi, R.B. Pal, etc. ERS (UP), ERG (Rajasthan), and Vikramshila presented their papers during the sessions.

Issue-based trainings for education workers and teachers

In continuation of our previous workshops/trainings, we conducted the second phase of training of Nabadisha teachers on some issues like child rights, a look into the iniquitous social system and the importance of education for equity, significance of curriculum, and the need for Common School System (CSS). And another such training was held with some of our partner organisations in West Bengal towards the end of March. These trainings are ideal platform to share our ideas, spruce up understanding of issues among participants, which helps in revisiting the purpose of our work, and figuring out a road ahead where all of us together can build up a movement on equity in education.

Inter-college Debate

On March 12, Vikramshila organized an inter-college debate on the topic, “this house believes that education has been commodified”. Six renowned colleges of kolkata participated in this debate, which was moderated by Mr. Barun Das. Eminent journalist Mr. Sunanda K. Datta-Ray graced the event by being the chief guest. The esteemed panel of judges comprised Dr. Anjan Ghosh, Prof. Rukmini Sen, and Mrs. Aloknanda Roy. Students for the motion said that students are being enticed into choosing a school based not on its academic qualities, but on its other facilities. The opposition begged to differ, believing that the teacher still has a sacrosanct status in society. It was difficult to reach a conclusive standpoint, but the panel had to come up with a best speaker and best team at the end.

Learnings and achievements in the year of scientific awareness

Previously, whenever there was attempt to spread scientific awareness, there were certain known groups that were given the responsibility. So, it did not gain the expected popularity, and the common people maintained the idea that scientific awareness and discussion are meant for science experts.

This year, the year of scientific awareness, since groups like farmers group, bazaar committee, local village clubs were involved, the campaign became much more popular. Vikramshila was assigned the role of coordinating agency in the district of Bardhamaan, West Bengal. Today, illiterate farmers are able to use and understand PH testing to see whether their soil is having high acid or alkali. Even though this might come across as a dream, it is true! Students, with keen interest have made progress in making their own bio-diversity registers. In view of efficient water use and management, the owner of pond(s) and panchayat were encouraged and convinced to take up to cleaning of ponds.

Through various activities, the idea and importance of scientific awareness has reached to 1000 science teachers in the district. Nearly 100 teachers were given inputs and ideas on how to do low-cost/ no-cost science experiments in their schools. We were able to organize farmers fair jointly with Panchayat samiti, where around 25,000 people came to know about various scientific methods in farming, and took part in several related discussions. In total, around 40,000 students of 70 high schools, directly or indirectly, participated in the various programmes meant for scientific awareness this year in Bardhamaan.

Going for another interesting intervention

Vikramshila has been awarded by REACH India the Capacity Building Support Grant for our project titled QUEST (Quality Education for Sustainable Transformation). The project is designed as a model that seeks to complement the efforts of the government in universalizing elementary education, with special emphasis on the particular needs of urban deprived children in Kolkata. Through QUEST, Vikramshila intends to facilitate capacity building of a group of identified NGOs (5 in number), and corresponding vicinity government primary and middle schools (10 in number) to establish a knowledge network to ensure the completion of education of vulnerable children. And we hope it would be the beginning of a new kind of intervention that is so urgently needed for the deprived children of this city.