Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam's inaugural address
National Conference on Enhancing Learning in Elementary Schools, July 23, 2004, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore
Good Morning Friends, I am very happy and delighted to see you all here. I understand a number of educationists have assembled here and every state has three representatives besides representatives from the Centre. I am very happy to meet all of you.
Honorable Mr. T.N Chaturvedi, Governor of Karnataka, Honorable C Dharam Singh, CM of Karnataka, Mr. Azim Premji, Chairman, Azim Premji Foundation, Ms. Kumud Bansal, Secretary Government of India, and Mr. Dileep Ranjekar, CEO, Azim Premji Foundation and all of you who assembled here to interact and have a beautiful day. I wish you all the best.
Friends, I have prepared for you a talk. The topic I have selected is "Evolution of Creative children". But I am going to deviate from my talk after I visited the school just now. The school I visited is Government Higher Elementary School, Nagasandra. I was with the children for about 20 minutes. And the children had smiles. Of course, I have met this type of students, about 200 thousand students, throughout the country. But children always smile. When I saw a child, a girl child, when she interacts with the computer, when she does the sum correctly, when she puts the mark correctly on the screen and got 80 per cent or 90 per cent, how happy she is!.
How do we ensure the child smiles throughout the education period ?
See how children smile. Whether the age is about six or 14-15 you see them smiling. Whether Nagaland, Karnataka, or any islands, our own islands, I find they are all the same children, same smile they have. Now how can we ensure that this smile continues among the children? What you have to do as an educationist? You know how the smile comes for the primary school children when they are learning but they don't know where they are heading, that is their secondary school and after secondary school, they have to fight for their 90-95 percent marks they have to score to get into professional colleges. So these children are not aware of that and that's why they smile now. But you know as responsible citizens of this country, as educationists our job is to see that smile
continues throughout or at least through the education period. Can you do that? How can you do that?
Do you know from class one to 10 + 2 how many years the students are on the campus ? 25 thousand hours ! In these 25 thousand hours, what do they learn ?
You know a child gets a kick of happiness when it achieves. A teacher who can bring out the creativity of children is the real teacher. The computer lesson has been made in such a way that it brings out the creativity of the children. So I believe even up to the age of 17, that is up to ten plus two you can keep the children smiling if the education system keeps the focus on themes of creativity. That is very important. That's why I am going to work with my friends in the Human Resource Development and primary education. I want to reduce the load of books for them so that creativity in the class is generated. So creativity is one of the very important tools for the teachers who are
teaching. You are all educationists. Do you know from class one to 10+ 2 how many hours the students are on the campus? 25 thousand hours! In these 25 thousand hours, what do they learn? What do they? And when they go home they do the homework and sleep. A lesson should be shaped in such a way that as we grow, the children are also growing. The more we learn the better it is for the nation.
Every school is responsible to create enlightened citizens. Every parent in the 250 million homes is responsible to generate transparent citizens.
Azim Premji expressed his concern about corruption. Wherever I go, youngsters ask me: Mr. President, tell me. You are planning a knowledge society. You are talking of a developed India. But in a country that is not transparent, that is so corrupt, how do you expect all this development? See it happened in Orissa. The same question I faced. A 10th class boy asked me "How can you do development work in a corrupt world?" Immediately I asked the mother sitting by his side: "Would you like to clarify your son's question? "No� no,� this boy is a fantastic fellow. He studies well but he has asked you a question bigger than himself," she said. I then put the question to the teacher. "This boy al!
ways
stands first in the class, but he should not have asked that question" was his reply. Whom do you go and ask the question then? So I tried to answer the question. See, only three people can remove corruption in this country. I can have hundreds of state laws; our chief ministerji can make a number of laws, similarly our law minister at Centre they can make laws. It is not possible to eradicate corruption.
Only three people can remove corruption -father, mother and the primary school teacher. Don't you think the responsibility of a value system can be taught only up to ten + two? Only father-mother.. Only they can teach. Now a days I am asking the boys and girls, whenever they meet me, I tell thousands of them, to take an oath in front of me. The oath goes like this: "I will never indulge in any corruption activities and also I will ensure my parents will also not get involved". Do you like that? Do you like that or no? So it starts from their home. There are 250 million homes. There is no point in merely grumbling about corruption. Every school is res!
ponsible
to create enlightened citizens. Every parent in the 250 million homes is responsible to generate transparent citizens.
A beautiful mind creates a beautiful home, a beautiful home creates a beautiful state and a beautiful state creates a beautiful world. So it starts from righteousness. Righteous in the heart creates beauty in character. Beauty in character creates harmony in the home; harmony in the home creates peace in the country. So righteousness starts from the individual. So my question is: Are we teaching righteousness to the students? The next question is: Are we righteous when we are teaching as a teacher. I go to the class and teach. And all the eyes of 200 students are watching me, how I behave, how I take the question, how I answer, what's my life, �.so friends I want to tell you: don't treat corruption as though it is somebody's problem. Every one of you is responsible. Government is responsible, chief minister is responsible, I am responsible, Premji is responsible. There is a famous saying in Tamil. Follow right! eousness. When you deviate from righteousness that itself becomes a destroyer. So friends, you education people assembled here, you are representing the whole country, you have to feel a good citizen comes out of you, an enlightened citizen comes out of you, your righteousness comes out of you.
The best part for prime learning period- 6-17 years. Hence, the school hours for children are the best time for learning which needs the best environment and a value based education system. This reminds me of a quote from a Bestolozzy a great teacher. He said "Give me a child for 7 years. Afterwards let the god or devil take the child, they cannot change my child".
The teacher is so powerful; his way of life, his way of changing the child no god or devil can change him later. Can you be so confident? The school and house have to have an integrated mission, education with value system. Up to the age of 17 years the father, mother and the teacher should help a child to become an enlightened citizen.
In an effort to improve the overall quality of learning for children, Azim Premji Foundation in collaboration with state Governments and multi-learning agencies has started a child friendly school education programme. The principal aim of this programme is to ensure that all children come to school for learning, learn during school time and complete five years of schooling. How does the Foundation get the dropouts? I asked Azimji. He says the Foundation sends people to homes to counsel the parents and all dropouts are brought to school. The scheme is effective because of the commitment of the teachers, village elders and the members of the school committee. The success rate of the programme is high because of the committed head teacher, says Azimji. The programme encompasses a series of interventions that strengthen the practices in classroom, provides support to educational administration and community empowe! rment to manage the education process. The initiative includes facilities like classrooms, water sanitation and services like safety, physical, psychosocial, and secure social strength.
I congratulate Azim Premji Foundation and the partners like state Government, for example Karnataka, for becoming a major child centric content developer in multiple local languages.
Now I come to another model. I call it M.R. Raju's model. Prof. Raju lives in his native village in Andhra. His life is interesting. With his assets, he started Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Medical Trust in his village Bettaviram to develop it. He was a famous nuclear scientist working in an American laboratory. He left his job to work in his village. He is supported by volunteers from various institutions from India and abroad. Together they have brought about a great change in the village. He particularly targeted the upliftment of children in the age group of 3-5 years, just before primary schooling. The village has about 100 children in this age group; out of this 50 belong to the high-income group who study in a private school. Ten are very poor and they study in the balwadi schools run by the state government. The other twenty joined the school run by Prof. Raju. In this school, the parents have to pay a fee ! of half-a-day wage per child per month, for a girl child they have to pay Rs. 10 per month. The emphasis on the school is its playful environment, nutritional support and caring love. This experiment is being repeated in many other schools. The parents are periodically invited to the schools and given training on the need for providing nutrition to the children, through proteins, leafy vegetables; and the children are given training on cleanliness and hygiene. Once we teach small kids, they force their parents to practice the same. They will not allow their parents to take food before washing their hands. When the teacher interacts with the children, he always talks to them as a scientist that means promoting creativity among the children. The students once trained in this school for three years, they learn to enjoy studies and do not become dropouts. How to reduce the number of dropouts? Start at the pre-elementary stage. Raju has totally transformed the village atmosphere an! d the dropout rate has come down from 70 percent to less than 30 percent. A confident young population is emerging in the village and the surrounding areas. Child psychologists and educationists have researched this method of training. Prof. Raju's effort during the last ten years proves the theory. A child becomes a willing learner if he or she is made to participate in learning activities before the regular schooling process begins. There are many other experiments like this. The JSS Vidya Peetha situated in Karnataka has a similar system. I visited Poornima Patwasa in a small tribal village near Saputara in Gujurat. It is for tribal children. They are brimming with all the confidence.
Teachers - the all critical people to create change
Let us look at teachers. Normally you find a good mathematics teacher, a physics teacher. Their number is very small because they are also looking for greener pastures. But suppose we need five million teachers and we have only
0.25 million teachers. How to solve the problem? What happens? In this connection I would like to narrate another learning model i.e. the telly education which is two way. (This I have described fully in my talk in my website you can see.) Here the teacher is using the blackboard and teaching 50 kids in one school but he is connected by satellite with another 10 schools. That means 500 students has got the teacher, good teacher, the good teacher is teaching, they can see the teacher, the teacher can see the students ask
questions. So this is a beautiful model. So I would request Mr. Azim Premji and Mr. Raju to use this model to make full use of good teachers. This model is freely available.
We have also established a digital library of about two million pages. These days teacher teaches many things and they can always ask the students to make use of the digital library by giving book number, page number and other details.
Capacity Building and bottom up approach
Let me refer to capacity building. How do you make a capacity-building model? I had a professor educationist Prof Robert Slator. He is a primary school teacher. He told me he has introduced a system in fifth class and onwards. Here the students teach. They select the classroom say of 50 students, learn the lessons, go to the class, and teach.
The child is empowered by the parents at various phases of growth; the child is transformed as a responsible citizen. The teacher also needs empowerment. When the teacher is empowered with knowledge and experience good young human beings with value system take shape. When individual are empowered with technology transformation higher potential is achieved. When the leader of any institution empowers his or her people, leaders are born who can change the nation in multiple areas. When women are empowered society is assured of stability. When the political leaders empower the people through missionary zeal, the prosperity of the nation is certain. Knowledge blended with value system empowers a child to achieve greater heights in his or her life. So I am grateful to Azim Premji Foundation and the ministry of Human Resource development for giving me this opportunity to meet you pe! ople who change the people and bring smile to all. Every Year Universities produce three million graduates. Students who learn up to 10th class and ten plus two are another seven million people who cannot afford to go to college. Ten million young and educated people are looking for employment and even 30% of them will not get jobs. We should teach them to become entrepreneurs. This teaching should begin in 8th class or 10th class. All the world is not a big industry. A group of three or four people can join and start an enterprise. They work instead of seeking employment. Instead of seekers of employment, they become the providers of employment. Then if you become the provider of employment then the smile, the primary school smile will continue throughout the life. Thank you wish you all the best. God bless you.
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