Creating Inclusive, Learning-Friendly Environments

If we think beyond the obvious challenges we face in School Education - Availability, Affordability and Quality, the next immediate dimension which springs up is Inclusion.

"Inclusive Education" has been on the agendas and drawing boards for quite some time now, but actual execution is where the entire plot goes haywire. More so, I think we will not be able to find a reasonable number of schools in the country who even talk about inclusive education, let alone try to implement it.

In its broadest and all encompassing meaning, inclusive education, as an approach, seeks to address the learning needs of all children, youth and adults with a specific focus on those who are vulnerable to marginalization and exclusion. It implies all learners, young people - with or without disabilities being able to learn together through access to common pre-school provisions, schools and community educational setting with an appropriate network of support services.  This is possible only in a flexible education system that assimilates the needs of a diverse range of learners and adapts itself to meet these needs.  It aims at all stakeholders in the system (learners, parents, community, teachers, administrators, policy makers) to be comfortable with diversity and see it as a challenge rather than a problem.

All this while, the concept of Inclusive Education has tended to be concerned principally with disability and ‘special educational needs’ and implied learners changing or becoming ‘ready for’ or deserving of accommodation by the mainstream. Now this is where we need to understand that Inclusion is not moving towards the mainstream. Inclusion is about the child’s right to participate and the school’s duty to accept the child. Inclusion should reject the use of special schools or classrooms to separate students with disabilities from students without disabilities. A premium should be placed upon full participation by students with disabilities and upon respect for their social, civil, and educational rights. 

Fully inclusive schools, though rare, do not distinguish between "general education" and "special education" programs; instead, the school is restructured so that all students learn together.

The following link gives an insight into what is an ILFE (Inclusive, Learning-Friendly Environment) and how can we move towards creating these ILFEs in our schools.

Tool kit for creating ILFEs

MI is not Mission Impossible and 007 is not James Bond

Theory of Multiple Intelligence - Gardener's Seven Intelligences


The Theory of Multiple Intelligence was indeed a major step towards establishing the relationship between cognition and formal education. Accepting Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences has several implications for teachers in terms of classroom instruction. 

1. The theory states that all seven intelligences are needed to productively function in society. Teachers, therefore, should think of all intelligences as equally important. This is in great contrast to traditional education systems which typically place a strong emphasis on the development and use of verbal and mathematical intelligences. Thus, the Theory of Multiple Intelligences implies that educators should recognize and teach to a broader range of talents and skills.  

2. Another implication is that teachers should structure the presentation of material in a style which engages most or all of the intelligences. For example, when teaching about the revolutionary war, a teacher can show students battle maps, play revolutionary war songs, organize a role play of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and have the students read a novel about life during that period. This kind of presentation not only excites students about learning, but it also allows a teacher to reinforce the same material in a variety of ways. By activating a wide assortment of intelligences, teaching in this manner can facilitate a deeper understanding of the subject material. 

3. Everyone is born possessing the seven intelligences. Nevertheless, all students will come into the classroom with different sets of developed intelligences. This means that each child will have his own unique set of intellectual strengths and weaknesses. These sets determine how easy (or difficult) it is for a student to learn information when it is presented in a particular manner. This is commonly referred to as a learning style. Many learning styles can be found within one classroom. Therefore, it is impossible, as well as impractical, for a teacher to accommodate every lesson to all of the learning styles found within the classroom. Nevertheless the teacher can show students how to use their more developed intelligences to assist in the understanding of a subject which normally employs their weaker intelligences. For example, the teacher can suggest that an especially musically intelligent child learn about the revolutionary war by making up a song about what happened. 

Following link gives further perspective on Howard Gardner, Multiple Intelligences and Education.

Howard Gardner

Spark's $2 Schools - Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid

An Indian MBA student at MIT in 2007 in his thesis came out with an idea based on Prof CK Prahlad's 'Bottom of the Pyramid' model and conceptualized Spark School-in-a-box – an idea to form ten-thousand, Rs. 100 ($2) schools. 

"This thesis presents four business cases for delivering education services to the poor. All four business cases meet three fundamental criteria, namely, they are (i) focused on primary or secondary education for the poor, (ii) commercially viable and (iii) highly scalable. These four business cases were developed as part of my efforts to set up The Spark Group – an idea incubator that is focused on improving the quality of education at a grassroots level.

High-quality schooling delivered at Rs. 100 per child per month through a scalable model built on seven fundamental principles:

1) Private Enterprises Owned and Operated by the Poor: Maximize outcomes by harnessing the power of grassroots entrepreneurship (think HLL Shakti)

2) Industrial Strength Standardization: Plug-and-play model comes with everything required to start and run a school - from curriculum to fee schedule to infrastructure plans (think McDonald’s)

3) Lightning Fast Setup: From “ink on the contract” to “chalk on the board” in 100 days flat (think Starbucks)

4) LocalEntity,NationalIdentity:Adaptedforlocalneeds.Yetintegratedunderone brand – instantly recognized by every poor family in India (think Parle-G biscuits)

5) Best-of-Breed:Noreinventionofthewheel.Assemblethebestelementsofproven models such as Akanksha, Pratham, Parikrma and Gyan Shala (think Cisco)

6) EconomiesofScale:Usesizetoextractbargainbasementprices(thinkWalMart) 7) Aggressive Expansion Strategy: Presence in every state in 5 years (think Reliance)

An excellent Business Case based on creating wealth through the Bottom of the Pyramid Economy along with a huge social impact. The idea wasn't able to live up to the ground situation though and the Spark group was disbanded. 

Can somebody make it work someday !!! 

http://web.media.mit.edu/~sandy/Ayan-Sarkar-Thesis.pdf
http://www.thesparkgroup.net

Time to move on from Institutionalized Schools to Child Centric Schools

The Shri Ram School (TSRS), New Delhi maintains its standing as the Most Respected Day School in India for the fourth year running. It is one of those rare child-centric schools in India where the entire learning ecosystem revolves around the primary stakeholder - The Child. 

Looks like, finally we are getting ready to move on from Institutionalized Schools to Child-Centric Schools.

Most Respected Schools in India

“At a deeper level, our consistently high ranking of the past four years is indicative of a shift in the public mindset in favour of quality holistic education. Parents are now well aware that the quality of teachers and their continuous in-service training and development is critical to academic excellence. Therefore it’s very satisfying that TSRS has been ranked the country’s No. 1 school on the parameters of teacher welfare and development, and competence of faculty. Moreover, there’s widespread awareness that we involve parents in the education of children to whom our highly-trained teachers pay personal attention. This explains our top ranking under the parameter of parental involvement. Logically, all this plus our high ranking under the parameters of sports, co-curricular and community service education should result in a top ranking under academic reputation.” says Mark Parkinson, former principal of Oxford International School, Dhaka and director of the two Shri Ram Schools in Delhi and Gurgaon since 2007.

Indeed The Shri Ram Schools are living up to their illustrious lineage - Delhi University Colleges like Sri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC) and Lady Shri Ram College (LSR).

One Laptop Per Child

And here is an interesting and sincere effort towards making children stay at school and learn.

Elementary students in Khairat, India, have kept their attendance near 100% since their school received XOs. Their teachers run weekly workshops inviting other teachers to come work with their students and share new ideas.

Challenges in Education we face as a Country - 1

It might not be incorrect to say that reach of Education in the World and particularly in our country does not show a lot of promise. The primary issue here is not enrollment, but retention of already enrolled children in schools and colleges. For instance, the GER (Gross Enrollment Ratio in the Age Group 18-23 is still abysmally low in our country, hovering around 15%.


Sibal targets 30% GER in Higher Education for 2020

105 cities in 9 countries and counting!!

1. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
2. Brussels, Belgium
3. Paris, France
4. Bonn, Germany
5. Barcelona, Spain
6. Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
7. Amsterdam, The Netherlands
8. Maastricht, The Netherlands
9. Washington DC, DC, USA
10. New York City, NY, USA
11. Las Vegas, NV, USA
12. Philadelphia, PA, USA
13. Los Angeles, CA, USA
14. New Delhi, India
15. Kumaon, India
16. Khajuraho, India
17. Baga, India
18. Jaipur, India

• Create your own travel map or travel blog
• Search for vacation rentals at TripAdvisor

How do some kids go to school? Remarkable and humbling story of human endurance and the will to get an education

If you live in the Zanskar valley, India it is a 5 day walk along one of the highest rivers, through some of the highest mountains, some of the coldest places on Earth. Amazing effort for an Education!!

Videos:

Human Planet- Zanskar River

Related readings:

Slip Sliding in Ladakh