Affordable Quality Education at Bali in Rajasthan

EBD's mission of affordable quality education becomes a reality in association with The Fabindia Schools. The school's mission is to provide access to high quality, affordable education at the rural level using English as the medium of instruction. The school views education as a major stepping stone towards social mobility, equality and employment opportunities. Our vision is to create a model school for empowering rural youth from diverse ethnic and economic backgrounds to shape their own lives and transform their communities.

We at EBD are indeed honoured to partner the Bhadrajun Artisans Trust (BAT). BAT was established by William and John Bissell to build social development programs with a focus on education and crafts. Sandeep Dutt is the Chairman of the charity. The Fabindia Schools at Bali are the key focus of the charity. Today we serve the needs of almost 1000 children and in the near future will grow the schools programme to serve 10,000 children, and this will be by partnering with the school in Bali and support them with systems, training and provide scholarships. 

The World Beyond Me

Keynote address delivered by Sandeep Dutt at the Round Square Conference*

Jaipur, 18th of November 2013 at the MGD School

Life is a journey from ‘Me to We’

It is a transition, it is a movement, it is an evolution and it is all about leadership.

To build your world beyond ‘Me’ you have to try to find yourself and what better way than the Round Square Conference!

Thank you young leaders and friends for gathering here to discover the world beyond Me. As we set out to do our task at this conference, am sure you will look beyond Me and take ahead your quest to We.

Me is the micro self while We is the macro cause. As an individual you must make the most of being here as Me and that is only possible when we play together, perform together and what more party together. Certainly as young people you want to have the fun and games and any work done without an element of fun is fundamentally boring!

Speeches from the podium are not only a boring feature but as we would say on the receiving end a real drag. Am not here to stretch your minutes to hours but to make the most of what We can do together.

My dear friends let us take life as a journey, and set out to find ourselves. When we find ourselves we find the leader within. A leader is what we all aspire to be and to lead is our key mission. Yes, you must stand on your head, walk on your feet and lead from your heart. You must think from your heart, and this sounds funny! Yes stand on your head and not on your feet. All cryptic isn’t it?

A leader is one who makes the Me evolve into We. He does this by compassion in his heart, and a head held high. For  thinking you will say you need to use your head alone, let me assure you a head without a heart is a lost cause. The World Beyond Me will only be possible when you follow your heart and let the heart guide your head instead. You have to do what you love and more so what your heart urges you to do, and must do this with the goal of making the world a better place. 

Round Square is based on the thought of German educator and philosopher Kurt Hahn. Hahn believed that schools should not just prepare pupils for higher education, but should in fact be places to prepare them for life. The six ideals of the Round Square movement Internationalism, Democracy, Environment, Adventure, Leadership and Service, all help you move from Me to We. Reflect closely here is and international congregation, they all believe in democracy, care for the environment, have fun with adventure on board, are all potential leaders and are there to serve the humanity.

Your being present here at Jaipur, a city that is a crucible of culture and known for the Rajput honour at the core is an opportunity for you. Do look at the Rajput, an epitome for the ‘We’, in the enchanting land of Rajasthan there is lots of folklore and history to help you learn about honour, dignity and respect for the We. May you find yourself in the colours of Rajasthan, in the desert sand of times and centuries of rich culture. I urge you to look around and ensure that you start finding the We, the sooner the better.

Here you will find the best set of peers, mentors, community and more so build friendships that will add charm to your journey of life and help you smile, reflect and walk with not only the head held high, but with a heart full of compassion, care, understanding, devotion, and most of all an urge to do better and become the very loved individual we all aspire to be.

* Round Square aims to equip school children for the future by combining the 6 IDEALS of international understanding, democracy, environmental stewardship, adventure, leadership and service. Round Square conferences are run both internationally and regionally. For more about Round Square International Service please visit the website http://www.roundsquare.org/

Why go to School?

There is a universal movement to send all children to a school, am today wondering is this the only way for providing education?

Education is liberation with responsibility, and am sure when we look back thousands of years we find that schools are not the only means of providing education. To push a universal solution is like working on an assembly line and may even be called cloning! In biology, cloning is the process of producing similar populations of genetically identical individuals (Wikipedia). Yes, we want to offer every person equal opportunity, freedom and liberty to lead a respectable life, but does the 'process' provide that? The debate 'literacy vs education' is indeed never ending and more often than not the so called education we provide only works for universal literacy.

The school of life is an environment for an individual to flower and find oneself, and this is the real school that we need, not just a School that we all are pushed to attend. School is not a venue but an environment, not an escape from the misgivings of life but a haven of opportunity. Our so called schools are really not a place we should go to. Inclusive, good-quality education is a foundation for dynamic and equitable societies. - Desmond Tutu This single line really is the inherent philosophy and the need for a school to abide by. Most schools due to economic necessity and societal bias skirt the main reason as to 'why we should go to school'. But the fact is, no matter how good the teacher, how small the class, how focused on quality education the school may be none of this matters if we ignore the individual needs of our students. - Roy Barnes 

Wikipedia states "A school is an institution designed for the teaching of students (or "pupils") under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is commonly compulsory." When there is compulsion are we not curbing a freedom? Protagonist and realist will question the need of absolute freedom, and counter that we need a process and environment of delivery. Look back and we find that education the way it is delivered in the schools has created economic imbalances, strained the ecosystem and added to many inherent challenges. Some even go on to say that science the panacea of all evils has also created its own demons. No system is perfect and thus why we all go to the same school, and not find ourselves is really an anomaly.

The school is just a description of a learning environment and not really a physical space as we have today come to describe our places of learning. The ancient philosophy of learning was indeed far more superior to our modern school methodology of 'by hearting'  practiced at most schools. Every kind of open mindedness and tolerance should be encouraged so that curiosity and desire to experiment increases. Physical, psycho-motor, emotional and intellectual and spiritual training can be accomplished with pragmatic approach. One can only make improvements in the scheme through trial and errors and learning from others' experiences.

Why go to School? The question itself is a challenge and we need to reflect on what kind of school rather than the need of going to any school. The best environment and perhaps the most distinguished learners as well as great people have often not cared to go to school, the place we are all are being pushed to go. What we need to attend is the 'School of Life'. The learning or in fact the curiosity within is the best fire to ignite and this needs a good environment and not just a process as most schools are. The School of Life is made up of family, peers, nature, all the flora and fauna, the world around and historically the need for human beings to live in harmony.

Am sure the question 'Why go to School?' will remain unanswered always, and what is called a school is a debate in itself. If we can help an individual think, learn and find herself/ himself am sure the journey through school will be a rewarding one.

- Sandeep Dutt, the author helps schools delivery better, the views expressed are his personal views please.

INDIA'S OLD SCHOOL TIE - HARROW BY THE HIMALAYAS

INDIA'S OLD SCHOOL TIE - HARROW BY THE HIMALAYAS - NYTimes.com

INDIA'S OLD SCHOOL TIE: HARROW BY THE HIMALAYAS
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN, Special to the New York Times
Published: November 12, 1985
DEHRA DUN, India— The ''old boys'' will probably talk about it for years.

Amid revelry, nostalgia and choruses of ''Auld Lang Syne,'' the alumni of one of the country's most exclusive boarding schools came back to their campus in the Himalayan foothills early in November to toast themselves and their ascendancy in India.

The Doon School, their alma mater, had much to celebrate 50 years after its founding by British educators as an Indian version of Eton or Harrow.

Read more

Reproduced this piece after nearly twenty years, and this will interest many!

What can schools and countries do to make sure students are learning while they are in school?

The Gap Between Schooling and Education

By ANNIE LOWREY

"The average kid in an Indian eighth grade classroom would be in first or second grade in the US. That's light years behind!"

The world has made dramatic gains in getting children — even very, very poor children — into school. But are they learning? The discomfiting conclusion from Lant Pritchett, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development and professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School, is, in many cases, no.

BOOK CHAT

Talking with authors about their work.

Center for Global DevelopmentLant Pritchett, a senior fellow at the Center for  Global Development and a professor at Harvard.

“The vast majority of countries will meet the Millennium Development Goal target for universal primary school completion, and very few countries will miss it by much,” he writes in his new book, “The Rebirth of Education: From 19th Century Schooling to 21st Century Learning.”

The change has been so rapid that the average Haitian or Bangladeshi  in 2010 had more years of schooling than the average French or Italian person did in 1960. (That data looks at average years of schooling for people 15 and older, by the way.) Even repressive and nondemocratic countries have seen tremendous gains. “Good governments do schooling, but nearly all bad governments do it, too,” Mr. Pritchett writes.

But that does not mean that all that schooling has translated into much education, he says. For instance, in the state of Uttar Pradesh in northern India, less than half of surveyed children in fifth grade could read a story intended for second graders. About one in six students in fifth grade recognized letters but could not read words.

What can schools and countries do to make sure students are learning while they are in school? What are the consequences of this schooling-education gap? Mr. Pritchett and I discussed those issues in a recent interview. A lightly edited transcript follows.

Read more