Bodhi Taru - An Incredible educational experiment unfurling in the heart of Greater Noida

While my last blog lambasted the spate of aberrational practices prevalent at a branded school expanding by leaps and bounds granting franchises to whosoever may pay, I would like to take this opportunity to introduce the readers about an incredible educational experiment which is unfurling in the heart of Greater Noida. 

If the Beautiful Tree of India's Indigenous Education was decimated by British Bureaucrats as asserted by none other than Mahatma Gandhi and empirically proved by his illustrious disciple Dharampal, the Indian ones are ensuring that no stone remains unturned to check the resuscitation of the same.

The Prime Minister might be disturbed over the utterly lower performance of India in the recently released Ease of Doing Business Rankings, but if he would simply interact with the passionate & committed edupreneurs of the likes of Anurag Pandey, who are investing it all to be in the business of providing quality education, he would certainly appreciate that it's a long haul to deliver a governance framework free from the imprints of imperialist designs.

Anurag Pandey

A 2006 graduate of BITS Mesra, Anurag pursued his corporate leanings but soon joined his parents in steering through a Management College established by them after getting armed with an MBA from IMT Ghaziabad. His advanced education and pestering of the intellect bade him to supplant the Management Education at the top with that of primary education at the bottom of the pyramid of educational superstructure. They say that the foundational nuggets of Change, Leadership, Communication, Innovation, Decision Making, Managing Self et al are all indoctrinated in the early years. 

He thereby went on to create Bodhi Taru within the very premises where his Management institution was operating for the past several years by creating a separate secluded block to this effect. He equipped it in all taste matching up with his vision to create a nursery of talent. Even a cursory glance and visit to the schools would show that it is way beyond the regular facilities available in any of the Government owned institutions or even to the agony of most of the branded franchises which go on to create claustrophobic & acrophobic structures to make the maximum out of their allocated lands at subsidized prices.

The immensely pleasing interiors seconded by an aspirational messaging replete with mesmerizing creatives all add upto the philosophy and vision propounded. The conduct & conversations which you enter in right from the Security Guard to the Receptionist to the Admissions Counsellor to the Faculty Coordinators owning up each of the learning studios to the Principal all fall in tandem with the pleasing & inviting demeanor of this young edupreneur who exudes passion, integrity and an enthusiasm of different genre altogether.

Despite all this majestic undertaking, Mr. Pandey was slapped with a Police FIR by the Basic Shiksha Adhikari (BSA) of Gautam Buddha Nagar over a trivial procedural technicality and that so on a very opportune moment when he was travelling overseas attending an educational conference. The Times of India correspondent made it a "masala point" and reported the incident with great fanfare without getting into the details or conversing

with the other side balancing out the facts. In a country where all legalities & illegalities are maneuvered over the swoosh of a pen depending on the influence exerted both in tangible & intangible terms, the headline "FIR against 'illegal' school in Gr Noida" look peculiarly interesting, reminiscing of our horrendous colonial past. If schools of the order of Bodhi Taru are faced to meet such offensive treatment by the system despite having such an impressive mix of all essentials, we as a nation certainly deserve to be at the Bottom of the Pyramid not only in the Ease of Doing Business but also in the Ease of Educating our Masses. 


Such a one-sided upfront reporting by mainstream media has become the norm as after Government, Educational Institutions remain their biggest source of advertising revenue. Maintaining a halo of fear constitutes a key strategy at times to extract the advertisement moolah.

The sinister play of educational cartels riding on the regressive regulatory regime stressing more on the acreage possessed by an institution instead of the innovative intellectual assets certainly smack of a decaying policy doctrine. 

A Renu Chaturvedi shall get away with all the institutional aberrations, an utterly unimpressive website, a prison like super structure masqueraded as a school just because it has got the lever of a brand having an elaborate set of linkages with the system which yields to its diktats thus adding to the monolithic upper hand in furthering its institutional hegemony; while a Sadhna Malik would have to go on and on to unleash her educational experiments even to the extent of being derided and decelerated by the vagaries of the system which by its very design is ante to innovation, experimentation & ideation.

I at times start wondering as to why this hypocritical mix of over regulation in a free market economy has been accorded to an arena as simple as that of primary education. Why can't primary education be given away in the hands of the society at large financing & regulating it as per its fetish & fascinations?   

The Prime Minister who is working so very hard to usher an age of transformation for would have to look personally into the business of education as this is the sure shot route for a glorious & glittering Bharat. It would be then and then alone experiments like that of Bodhi Taru would gain grounds and shall restore the Beautiful Tree of India's Educational splendour which the Mahatma took so much pride in. 

  

  

      
   
            

The Farce of Nursery Admission Interviews :: The irreverent state of affairs at DPS Greater Noida

"Aapko do bacchon ki fees se dikkat to nahin hogi" (You won't be pained by the fee burden of two students), this was the parting question by the Principal of DPS Greater Noida, Smt. Renu Chaturvedi, while we entered her plush office with our daughter Nikunjeshwary and her application for admission. 

The Principal's first remark as she picked up the form of the potential student was "What a looong name?", as if we had committed some folly in naming our daughter which did not fit well into her framework of comprehension or ordained guidelines of a modern progressive education. 

She seemed disinterested into going through the verbose submissions which we were made to undergo in the form of Parent's Response Sheet, a bulk of the information sought in it was a sheer repetition from yet another form handed to us with the school prospectus. 

Either our answers were not upto the mark befitting the standards of the school or the principal was reciprocating to our objection of not falling in line with a compulsory donation pledge of Cheshta Programme run under the aegis of DPS Greater Noida for the underprivileged which was handed over to us along with this "Parent's Response Sheet". As a matter of choice, I took the option of devoting 2 hours a week for the underprivileged adhering to the coveted motto of the school "Service before Self". But the principal, either instructed from the top echelons or on her own was looking for a giving pledge of Rs 5000 pm which was interestingly made compulsory at the very opportune moment in the cauldron where the entire set of parents aspiring for getting a "DPS" tag for their wards were made to assemble.

Whether this undue and unwarranted influence to seek additional monetary contribution shall fall into the gamut of corruption or not within the existing legal frameworks would be a matter of scrutiny, but certainly on the moral & ethical grounds, this was a stark case of aberration being perpetuated by DPS Greater Noida on the behest of its award winning principal. 

How can educators of such dubious distinctions instill the values of integrity in the young minds which we were going to entrust with so much fanfare and pride? I was just mulling over and over. 

However, this open & blatant coercion took me off of my composure as there is no end to compromise if you give way to the very first instance.        

The news certainly went to the principal who made it a point to retaliate in her very characteristic and suave demeanor. Her constant focus was on the column pertaining to the Annual Income and not on the educational & professional backgrounds which probably belonged to a decent pedigree of me being an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur and my wife being from the coveted All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).  

She was more concerned about the place of work rather than the nature of work of the parents. Probably, she was briefed to screen only for the "holy cows" who are not meant to retaliate at any point of time despite all kinds of exigencies.

The principal's contempt for our being on our own as entrepreneurs was starkly visible from her inherent disinterest & apathy as expressed by her questions "Oh, you have your clinic at Jagat Farms", to my wife and to me "where do you go to work" as I had not flashed out some fancy corporate address in my submission, deliberately. 

When principals are reduced to evaluate the other IQ (Income Quotient) than the one which they are actually meant to evaluate, the Intellectual Quotient, such aberrations are but natural.     

We were amply cautioned by the saner practical minds belonging to the play school where our daughter went that you ought to be extremely submissive right from the school gate to the principal's office as questioning the School Authority on any pretext is taken to be a disqualification at once. The School warrants moneybags who are initiated into the pedigree of "obedience without questioning". 

I relented.It was probably one of the very few occasions I convinced myself to hold back my horses and fall in line with the established "conventions" & "protocols" without pondering over their inherent rationale.

I could not be convinced by any point of reasoning as to why should a kid of around 3 years in age subjected to an endurance test in isolation in the vigil of almost 3 strangers, howsoever affectionate they are? Even the grown ups facing the Service Selection Boards get nervous when they meet the probing eyes of a panel. Isn't this therefore a violent exercise which has the greater risk of uprooting a toddler from the deepest recesses of his/her being? Why shouldn't the parents/guardians be allowed to accompany just to give the child the warmth and confidence to be in his/her natural state of being? 

When even the Kitchens at most of the coveted restaurants have opened up for want of probity & transparency; when the questioning of a minor is not allowed by police officials without a legal counsel nearby and when education at higher levels settling down for open book evaluations and adhering to individual selves, why such regressive conventions still persist in evaluating the qualification of a toddler to a nursery?   

When group discussions & activities have become the usual norm for assessing the personality & potential of candidates even at ripe platforms of employment, why not the same pedagogy of evaluation be instituted at a forum where the only possession of the candidates is their emotional quotient. 

The kids can all be put into an activity room to play and express themselves in each others company which can be observed from behind a glass wall or on camera. This shall give ample objectivity to the process of evaluating the candidature & fitness of the kids to get enrolled in a formal schooling process.

Why can't silent observers be left out in the school premises to observe the behavioral patterns of the potential students? The sense of observation & inquisitiveness to learn is probably the two distinctive qualification which are pressed upon by thinkers on education across the board.

   
In their bid to run their assembly lines, the 340 odd faculty members of the school (as per the school brochure) couldn't observe this unfurling class being taken by the potential student beside a tree from her Nani. They also couldn't observe the learning demeanor of the kid which required a serene setting to unfurl herself.     

When the tyranny of Board examinations at the advanced stage of class 10th has been supplanted by that of a Continuous & Comprehensive Evaluation, how come an entirely subjective process of interaction subjecting a kid to an institutionalized form of ragging by three grown up strangers at once, stridden with aforesaid aberrational practices be made to continue?

The last and the most intriguing aspect of this escapade which I encountered was the sheer sense of derision accentuated by the learned principal over the daring of the kid under consideration to pick up a chocolate from her table. The kid who rejected to go into the "evaluation room" all alone and who ran away on seeing those three official evaluators in the corridor, dared to pick up the chocolate from the principal's table was rejected for admission by the learned principal. 

She got visibly offended as to how come a kid of a little less than 3 years of age could dare to abrogate her disciplinarian regime while she chose to exibit her unbridled authority by parking her car right on the school entrance gate obstructing the free view and free passage in an otherwise nice manicured lawns where a Buddha was meditating in a natural splendour reverberating the message of "Aapo Deepo Bhav", Be a light onto yourself. I got amply concerned as to what shall become of the kids nurtured under her stewardship? 

 
Interestingly, the principal couldn't find any merit in the kid whatsoever through these subtle but substantial instances and failed to provide a rightful platform for her to express which is probably expected from an institution of the stature of a DPS. She was either mired with her contemptuous framework of evaluating the IQ (Income Quotient) of the parents who were in tune with their daughter in daring, who chose not to budge beyond a point as they were entrusting their most valuable possession into an educational factory which shall be having a profound influence and impact on the IQ, EQ & SQ of their lovelorn for the next 12 years.     

Educational institutions are meant to be nurseries of talent, rather than factories of programmable robots who have no propensity or capacity to dissent. May be the DPS Greater Noida, which boasts to be one of the 11 Core Institutions of the coveted DPS group has got immensely influenced from the vast industrial establishment of LG Electronics adjacent to its premises. It's imposing superstructure don't exude the vibes of a vibrant educational ecosystem. 

It simply smacks of an arrogant, upnose and upstart concentration camp whereby picking up a chocolate from the principal's table by a toddler is considered to be an offense rather than a joyful act in the process of learning. 

  
The 15 acres of priced institutional land which has been entrusted upon the DPS Society has been certainly misused to erect vertical towers to create an industrial capacity to manufacture 4000 odd robots a year.  
 The School Architecture is meant to be harmonious and non-frightening, the reason they are allotted vast swathes of priced lands at discounted prices to create low height structure. 

When the commercial mall of Ansal Plaza has been instructed by the Authorities to install safety nets at just 2nd and 3rd floors, the skyscrapers of DPS Greater Noida pose a serious threat to the security and safety to the children which their tempting parents go all out to admit braving all odds and facing all humiliations. 

We for that matter reject this hazardous factory of education and by way of this write-up like to bring the attention of all concerned authorities to investigate the other potential risks which it poses to the mental as well as physical well being of the students at large.   

Out of my professional compulsion, I shall be keen to confront the Hon'ble Principle sometime on one of the other forums to know her very views on the entire set of aberrational practices which she has allowed to outgrow around her. 

The senior management of the DPS Family need to take cognizance that it just takes a rightful blow for a brand to get disavowed overnight. The Satyam Saga and the Kingfisher debauchery is all out in the open for us to see. 

Let not the illustrious brand of DPS nurtured by the likes of Padma Vibhusham Dr. Syama Chona and others get meddled by the likes of Madam Renu Chaturvedi. 

I might have gone overboard in exposing what all I found aberrational in a temple of learning and risked the admission of my very own ward in the so-called coveted schools of the region. Nonetheless, I am content that I didn't compromise on the foundational ideals and gave the first and the foremost lesson to my daughter that not to settle down compromising one's own values. My daughter shall somehow found a school of her suiting or else her father would erect one for her. But the father-daughter duo won't settle down for the aberrated innuendos extended to them by the established & accepted conventions.