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.
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.
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.
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.
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