Interesting--Teach for India

[Starry Messenger]

I was just looking up articles on neoliberal policies in India and came across some parallels in Education to our coutnry. They have a TFA equivalent called TFI:

http://www.teachforindia.org/board-of-directors.php

Board of Directors

Shaheen Mistri, Chief Executive Officer

Shaheen Mistri is the founder of the Akanksha Foundation, a non-profit organization with a mission to impact the lives of less privileged children, enabling them to maximise their potential and change their lives. Akanksha works primarily in the field of education, addressing non formal education through the Akanksha centre model and also formal education by initiating school reform. Over the past 19 years, the organization has expanded from 15 children in one centre to over 3,500 children across Mumbai and Pune. Mistri is an Ashoka Fellow (2001), a Global Leader for Tomorrow at the World Economic Forum (2002), an Asia Society 21 Leader (2006) and serves on the boards of Ummeed, The Thermax Social Initiatives Foundation and is an advisor to the Latika Roy Foundation. Mistri has been working on the idea of Teach For India from 2007, and serves as its founding CEO and one of its founding Board Members.

Anu Aga, Board Member

Anu Aga is the former Executive Chairperson of the Thermax Group. She is currently on the Board of Directors of the Akanksha Foundation and the Thermax Social Initiatives Foundation. Aga has also been very active in various national and local associations like the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) and was the first woman chairperson of CII's Western Region. She has written extensively and given talks on the subject of women´s empowerment, corporate governance, value-based management and corporate social responsibility. Aga is keenly involved in the causes of communal harmony and human rights, especially for women and children. She also supports various organizations that promote education, in particular education of underprivileged children from slums.

Girish Bhakoo, Board Member

Girish Bhakoo is an investment analyst with Ruane, Cunniff & Goldfarb (RCG), Inc. and a partner at Acacia Partners. At RCG, Girish identifies long-term investment opportunities on a global basis while primarily helping to oversee Acacia Partners. Girish joined RCG in 2001, having spent the prior 6 years at global investment manager Equinox Partners and its sister firm Mason Hill Asset Management. Girish joined Mason Hill / Equinox as an intern investment analyst during college and then full-time in 1995 and was a partner there prior to his departure. Bhakoo graduated from Williams College in 1995 and holds the CFA designation. He resides in New York City and serves on various business and civic boards.

Rajat Gupta, Board Member

Rajat Gupta is the former Managing Director of McKinsey & Company worldwide. He is the chairman of the Board of the Indian School of Business. In addition to this, Gupta is on the advisory boards of Harvard Business School and the Kellogg School of Management. He is the co-chair of the American Indian Foundation (AIF), whose mission it is to accelerate social and economic change in India. Gupta is also on the board of trustees of the University of Chicago and the Rockefeller Foundation. He has advised McKinsey´s work with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as well as acted as an advisor to former UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan.

Wendy Kopp, Board Member

Wendy Kopp is the Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Teach For America. Kopp proposed the creation of Teach For America in her undergraduate senior thesis in 1989 and has spent the last 18 years working to sustain and grow the organization. Under Kopp´s leadership, Teach For America is in the midst of an effort to grow to scale while maximizing the impact of corps members and alumni as a force for short-term and long-term change. Kopp serves on the board of directors of The New Teacher Project, and on the advisory boards of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, Duke University´s Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship and the National Council on Teacher Quality. She also holds honorary doctorate degrees from Mount Holyoke College (2007), Rhodes College (2007), Pace University (2004), Mercy College (2004), Smith College (2001), Princeton University (2000), Connecticut College (1995), and Drew University (1995). She is the youngest person and the first woman to receive Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson Award (1993), the highest honor the school confers on its undergraduate alumni.

In 1994, Time Magazine recognized her as one of the forty most promising leaders under 40; in 2006, U.S. News & World Report recognized her as one of America´s Best Leaders. Kopp has also been recognized with The Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Prize in Education Award (2006), the John F. Kennedy New Frontier Award (2004), the Clinton Center Award for Leadership and National Service (2003), the Schwab Foundation's Outstanding Social Entrepreneur Award (2003), Aetna's Voice of Conscience Award (1994), the Citizen Activist Award from the Gleitsman Foundation (1994), and the Jefferson Award for Public Service (1991).

Deepak Satwalekar, Board Member

Deepak M Satwalekar has recently retired as the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (MD & CEO) of HDFC Standard Life Insurance Company Ltd. Earlier, Mr. Satwalekar was the Managing Director of HDFC, the country´s largest mortgage lender. Mr Satwalekar received a B.Tech. in Mechanical Engineering from IIT, Mumbai and a M.B.A. from the American University. Mr. Satwalekar has been a consultant to the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and other bilateral and multilateral agencies and has worked in several countries. Besides being a recipient of the “Distinguished Alumnus Awards from IIT, Bombay, he is on the Advisory Council of the IIT, Bombay. He has been a member of/chaired several industry, Reserve Bank of India and government expert groups. He also serves as an independent director on the boards of some companies in India.

Nisa Godrej

Nisa is the Executive Vice President, Business Development of Godrej Industries. She led a group wide portfolio strategy initiative and has been instrumental in setting up a strategy cell for Godrej. Nisa is also closely involved in the selection and development of top management and employee engagement with a specific focus on Godrej's Agri and FMCG portfolios.Nisa has a BSc degree from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Harvard Business School. She is passionate about reading, trekking, equestrian and water sports.


At Thermax, we want our Trainees to have sensitivity towards all stakeholders and concern for the society in which we live. I am confident Teach For India will develop all these qualities and I fully endorse it.

- Anu Aga, Former Executive Chairperson, Thermax Group

The Board President, Shaheen Mistri, the founder of the Akanksha Foundation" is the leader of a chain of charter schools in urban India.


http://www.akanksha.org/

http://blog.ambientengines.com/2010/03/21/akanksha-engaging-children-in-education/

Last year we had the chance to host Vandana Goyal and Ruchika Gupta from Akanksha when they visited Boston. Over the years we had heard of the wonderful work this NGO had been doing in India and it was great to hear about their plans for expansion when they presented to a small group of interested folks at MIT. When we decided to visit India around December, we made sure that we had set aside some time to visit Akanksha at one of their facilities.

Twenty years ago, the first Akanksha center opened for children from the slum communities of Mumbai, an innovative after school program designed to provide them with fun, engaging learning opportunities. Founded by Shaheen Mistri at the age of 18, these centers develop children’s English language fluency as well as equip them to go on to college, attain a good job and become change agents in their communities. Today, over 80% of Akanksha children go on to college to begin professional careers compared to only 30% of Indian children who successfully complete the 10th grade.

In 2007, inspired by the success of its centers and stories of charter schools such as KIPP in the United States, Akanksha began its initiative to transform schools in urban India by planting the seeds of the charter school movement in Mumbai and Pune. Today, Akanksha serves 3,500 children through its 57 centers and six schools.

I haven't drawn any conclusions yet. Interesting avenues for research. Wendy Kopp of TFA was involved in helping set this up.

http://punekar.in/site/2009/01/19/%E2%80%9Cwe%E2%80%99re-looking-for-the-next-generation-of-leaders%E2%80%9D/

How did you get involved in Teach For India?

After seeing so many success stories at Akanksha, I was inspired by seeing kids turning their lives around. However, they were only a handful of kids and so the next question was how to bring about systemic change. At that time there were four alumni from Teach For America working at Akanksha. I was very impressed with their enthusiasm and skills and so I went to America to meet Wendy Kopp, the Founder of Teach for America, and she then came to India! I talked to other people in the field of education and, after hiring McKinsey to undertake a Feasibility Study, we set up Teach For India. The execution started a few months ago and the teachers will start their training in May and start working in classrooms in June.

[Hannah Bell]

1. i've drawn some conclusions, though....

"at that time there were four alumni from Teach For America working at Akanksha. I was very impressed with their enthusiasm and skills and so I went to America to meet Wendy Kopp, the Founder of Teach for America, and she then came to India!"

personnel = the same financial/upscale types involved in deform in the us & the serendipitous story above doesn't ring true to me. i'd bet the meeting was a lot more planned & kopp, etc's involvement more substantial.

[Starry Messenger]

3. Yeah, I'm looking. I agree.

So far I'm just finding a few press releases with Wendy singing the praises of TFI. I don't believe the cover story for an instant. They say Shaheen was just this 18 year old who went on vacation back home to India and suddenly had a vision of charter schools. lol.


http://teach4india.wordpress.com/2010/02/15/teach-for-india-using-your-mba-to-fix-primary-education/

Teach For India: Using your MBA to fix primary education

February 15, 2010 by prakharbhartiya

By Shivangi Narayan on 15 February 2010 on http://www.pagalguy.com/
in Alternative MBA careers, Primary Education, Social sector, Teach For India

We all have been mildly aware of the fact that an increasing number of MBA graduates are choosing to work for the non-profit sector, either as entrepreneurs or employees of organizations driven more by the need for social good and not commercial profit. We came across one such rather unique and refreshing instance of a venture that has employed graduates from some of the better-known business schools as primary school teachers at government schools in low-income group areas. At Teach For India, watching MBA graduates apply their management skills to teach a class of third-graders can make you question stereotypical notions about products of business schools.

A bunch of MBAs have taken to teaching through an organization known as Teach For India or TFI, a ‘movement’ (based on a similar movement in the USA called Teach For America, and not to be confused with the Times Group’s Teach India) to harness people who in future, are likely to rise up to become leaders in their domain and hence will be able to help improve the state of primary education in India by influencing those around them. Started by Shaheen Mistry in 2006, TFI has adopted a number of government schools in the Mumbai and Pune area and is empowering them with the promise of highly-qualified, young and energetic teachers, known in TFI-ese as ‘fellows’.

<snip>

Although all fellows receive basic training in teaching, they are free to experiment and improvise once they are inside the classroom, making for a number of creative teaching methods in TFI-adopted schools. For instance Ashish Bansal, an MBA from the KJ Somaiya Institute of Management Studies and Research, Mumbai, who joined TFI right after he graduated from b-school, has a ‘big goal’ for his class and ’secondary goals’ that lead to the big goal. The ‘big goal’ is a book, which the students wthreeill write and present at the end of the program. Knowledge of say, English grammar, which is essential for writing a book, will become the ’secondary goal’.

Bansal draws a parallel between his work and financial investment. The low-income locality in which he teaches, parents would rather send their kids to work than to school. He thus considers having regular meetings with parents and providing updates about their children’s progress in class as investment. When students come to school regularly and with a packed lunch box, he counts the success as his return on investment.

The idea at TFI is, that after two years of teaching experience, a fellow will become a leader, with his class of 20-30 third graders as his organization. The teacher has to lead the students (his organization) towards a goal and therefore, every minute is an earning opportunity.

Here's a long article with background on school choice in India:

http://www.educationworldonline.net/index.php/page-article-choice-more-id-1966

“Learning outcomes in India’s 1.33 million government schools are poor because the system doesn’t provide for autonomy and accountability,” says Dr. Parth Shah, president of the Delhi-based policy think-tank Centre for Civil Society (CSS, estb.1997). “The education departments of state governments control everything from syllabus design to teacher recruitment and training. There is zero scope for flexibility, creativity and learning. I strongly believe that we need to reduce the monopoly of government schools on poor students by offering them a choice of schools in which they wish to study. This can be done by giving them education vouchers to access private schools of their choice, and through charter schools. Both alternatives will continue to be funded by government but will offer the prospect of improving outcomes. Charter schools are a vibrant reality in the US and have enabled thousands of parents to exercise choice in selecting the most suitable schools for their children. If implemented in India, charter schools can offer parents dependent on poor quality government schools a way out of the system, and dramatically improve student learning outcomes. Unfortunately the Indian government is yet to accept this idea.”

To advocate the cause of education vouchers for economically disadvan-taged parents to access private schools for their children, CSS launched its School Choice Campaign in 2007. Under the campaign, India’s first school voucher project was initiated in Delhi on March 28, 2007 and school vouchers valued up to Rs.3,600 per year per student were awarded to 408 students in 68 municipal wards of Delhi.

<snip>

A favoured project of free-market ideologues, the charter school concept is driven by a simple logic: Give parents the choice and they will vote with their feet. Innovative charters will flourish, the rest will close shop and non-performing government schools will transform into charters. And as in any market, there will be winners and losers. But parents — who have the greatest interest in the education of children — will pick and choose the winners. And for charter schools to perform well, free them of bureaucratic and teacher-union restrictions; empower principals to hire and fire teachers and determine curriculum — control and command diktats that typically flow from state or local government education departments to government schools.

In the Indian context, with the post-liberalisation emergence of several highly-respected education focused NGOs such as Pratham, Deepalaya, Akshara Foundation, CRY, Akanksha and Parikrma Foundation, and professionally managed education groups and companies like Manipal K-12, Ryan Group of Institutions, Educomp Solutions and Everonn Education, there’s a strong case for public-private partnerships based on the US charter school model. To begin with, worst performing government schools could be chartered to reputable education NGOs and/or private education providers ready, willing and able to turn them around and guarantee improved learning outcomes.

“I think it makes very good sense for state and municipal governments to delegate the management and administration of their collapsing, non-performing schools to NGOs. This is already happening in the US under the charter school programme. We have been discussing this proposal with the Brihan Mumbai Corporation (munici-pality) for over a year without success. But yes, if given full control over management and staffing for a minimum of five years, we are ready and willing to assume the responsibility of sharply improving learning outcomes in government schools,” Shaheen Mistry, an education graduate of Manchester University (UK) and promoter-director of Akanksha (estb. 1991), a Mumbai-based supplementary education NGO, told EducationWorld two years ago (‘Should failing government schools be leased to NGOs?’ July 2007).

Got to be the usual suspects from ed deform here. I'll keep looking to find names.

[Starry Messenger]

4. Dr. Parth Shah of Center for Civil Society

Let's play Free Market bingo! Von Mises, natch. Dr. Shah is listed on the Heartland think-tank page as a policy advisor:

http://www.heartland.org/full/9957/Shah_Dr_Parth_J.html


Shah, Dr. Parth J.
Links
Links > Policy Advisors
Email a Friend
Written By: Heartland Institute staff
Published In:
Publication date: 08/28/2002
Publisher: The Heartland Institute
Dr. Parth J. Shah is a Policy Advisor to The Heartland Institute and founder of the Center for Civil Society in New Delhi, India.

Contact Information
Dr. Parth J. Shah
Center for Civil Society
B-12 Kailash Colony
New Delhi 110048, INDIA
Phone [phone]
Fax [phone]
Email [e-mail]


Degrees
Ph.D. (Economics), Auburn University, Auburn, December 1990
B.S. (Pharmacy), M.S. University, Baroda, India, December 1982


Dissertation
Hong Kong’s Free-Issue Monetary Regime (1972-1983): The Indeterminacy Puzzle


Fields of Specialization
Money-Macroeconomics
Laissez-Faire Banking
International Finance


Fields of Interest
Political Economy of Developing Societies
Methodology of Social Sciences
Economics of Privatization/Desocialization
Public Choice


Courses Taught
Macroeconomics
Money & Banking
Monetary Theory
Development Economics
Comparative Economic Systems
Political Economy of the Austrian School
Economic Rhetoric and Writing


Experience

Assistant Professor, Economics, University of Michigan-Dearborn, Fall 1991-present

Member, Campus Grants Committee, 1993-present

Member, Campus Writing Advisory Board, 1994-present

Member-at-Large, Executive Committee, Department of Social Sciences, 1995-1996

Faculty Advisor, Economics Club, 1993-1995

Economics Discipline Representative, 1993-1994

Member, Executive Committee, Department of Social Sciences, 1993-1994

Research Associate, Department of Fisheries, Auburn University, 1989-1990

Graduate Teaching Assistant, Department of Economics, Auburn University. 1989-1990: Money & Banking (with full responsibility). 1988-1989: Recitation classes, Principles: Micro & Macro

Graduate Research Assistant, Department of Economics, Auburn University, 1985-1987

Assistant Editor, Austrian Economics Newsletter, 1986-1989

Director, Austrian Economics Colloquium, Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1988-1989


Fellowships and Scholarships
Earhart Foundation Fellowship, 1989-1990
G.T. Management Fellowship, Hong Kong, Summer 1988
Ludwig von Mises Institute Fellowship, 1987-1989
Institute for Humane Studies Fellowship, Summer 1986
National Merit Scholarship, New Delhi, India, 1978-1982
Faculty Merit Scholarship, M.S. University, Baroda, India, 1979-1980, 1981-1982


Affiliations and Honors
American Economic Association
Western Economic Association
Atlantic Economic Society
Member, Board of Advisors, Mackinac Center for Public Policy, Midland, Michigan
Member, Board of Advisors, The Heartland Institute, Chicago, Illinois
Rho Chi Honor Society

[Hannah Bell]

5. "18 year old who went on vacation back home to India & suddenly had a vision of charter schools"

the standard storyline.

she's probably someone's daughter, connected.

her bio says she's parsi & was born in india & lived in 13 countries before she was 18. sounds like a diplomat, corporate or military family.

parsis also overrepresented in banking & finance -- if memory serves.

on edit: bingo for me:

"Shaheen is one of the gutsiest and most passionate people I’ve ever met. She is from Mumbai but grew up around the world, as HER FATHER'S SUCCESSFUL BANKING CAREER took the family to several continents. She landed at Tufts University for her freshman year of college and traveled to India the following summer, returning to Mumbai."


yep, just an idealistic college girl with a dream...

gag me.

this, & all the phoney "kid with a dream, founded x big organization/business on a shoestring" = mystification to disguise the real purpose/backers/class interests of such organizations from the masses.

so people grow up believing this shit & it takes them all their lives to unlearn it, by which time they're too old & invested in the system to do much about it.

[Starry Messenger]

6. Here's another bio:

http://www.siliconindia.com/shownews/She_quit_smug_US_life_for_Indian_shanty_children-nid-17395.html

She quit smug U.S. life for Indian shanty children
By IANS
Thursday, 31 October 2002, 00:00 Hrs


<snip>
She, therefore, decided to take a year's leave from tuft and see for herself if her plans to remain in India worked out.

Eventually, when her project took off, Mistry, who has a master's in education from the Manchester University, Britain, and a bachelor's degree from Bombay University, decided to stay.

In three months, the center was built as an informal college project to educate 10 children in one slum in Mumbai. "Now it is a recognized NGO, educating 1,500 children in Mumbai and Pune."

Earlier this year, the World Economic Forum named her among the "Global Leaders of Tomorrow". Last year Mistry, who is raising a three-year-old child by herself, was named an Ashoka fellow.

The Ashoka organization, founded by Bill Drayton, a former consultant with McKinsey & Co. and assistant administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency, also decided to give her a three-year funding.

Mistry said Akansha has an annual budget of a little over $180,000, of which 25 percent is not spent.

"We have 54 teachers, 18 of them full time, and 300 volunteers," she said, adding that a group of teachers or volunteers also goes to India each year to give the children fresh exposure.

A child at Akanksha, she said, goes through seven levels of education and at the top level, each child has an individual mentor. The mentors could be individuals or companies, she said.

DSP Merrill Lynch, for example, helps some children interact with the staff, takes them around the offices, she said. "So that the children are exposed to city life, in a sense, get used to it and deal with it."Mistry plans to take the strength of children at the school from 1,560 at present to 10,000 over the next five years for which global consulting giant McKinsey is providing its services.

Wendy Kopp has a similar narrative arc, "idealistic college girl" founding TFA on the strength of her college thesis. Did you know Union Carbide was part of her her seed money for TFA? I just found that out...

http://learningtogive.org/papers/paper161.html

Ties to the Philanthropic Sector

Teach for America depends entirely on donations and grants from private corporations, individuals, foundations and the government. In the beginning, Union Carbide, Mobile Corporation and Morgan Stanley were major supporters providing start-up support and office space rent-free. Other supporters that first year were The Carnegie Corporation who contributed $300,000, the Kellogg Foundation contributing $40,000, Merck & Company as their first corporate sponsor, and Ross Perot personally offered a challenge grant of $500,000. With those gifts in place, the remaining dollars came in rather quickly to meet a $2.5 million budget (Ibid., 42-46).

Yes, what a plucky little camper!

[Hannah Bell]

9. another mickey & judy story. "Hey kids, let's put on a show !"

two weeks later, the 13 year olds have mounted a full-scale broadway production in the barn -- using only ingenuity, pluck & their school milk money.

[Starry Messenger]

18. lol, right

The scary thing is how people really eat that up! It's so phony, it just seems obvious. No one ever want to hear that nice little Horatio Alger had a trust fund and a think tank to hold his/her hand.


Here's that think tank in India:
http://www.ccsindia.org/ccsindia/advocacy.asp

Their school choice website:
http://schoolchoice.in/

Their platform vis the RTE school reform bill that passed in India.

http://schoolchoice.in/campaigns/rte.php


Vouchers, CCT and Scholarships

Government School Reforms

Deregulating Education Sector

Learning Outcomes and Achievements



Let's look at deregulating, that always lights up my Milton Friedman alarm here at Starry Central:

Deregulating Education Sector

The licensing and regulatory restrictions in the education sector are discouraging well-intentioned ‘edu-preneurs’ from opening more schools. Also, a great number of ‘Budget schools’ that are mushrooming in lower-class neighbourhoods are forced to stay outside the purview of the formal education sector due to lack of Government-prescribed ‘recognition’. With a view of encouraging a greater number of schools to cater for all sections of society and to bring good quality budget schools within the fold of education, we propose a new system of ‘graded recognition’. Such a system would recognize all schools and place emphasis on input as well as outputs (outcomes) in provision of education.

Graded Recognition System

An increasing number of schools being run from lower class neighbourhoods are educating the most disadvantaged students in urban areas. Charging a nominal fee, these ‘Budget Private Schools’ cater extensively to children from economically weaker backgrounds. The growing popularity, amongst poor parents, of such schools in slums and weaker sections of the society has confirmed their acceptability and credibility. Moreover, State Governments across India have been working with many such schools, typically run by Non-Governmental Organisations and Not-for-Profit Trusts, to reach out to the most vulnerable children. Provisions under Section 19 of the RTE bill threaten harsh penalties for schools that fail to gain recognition within three years. We submit that this is too severe a penalty when you take note of the invaluable, pro-poor and community-oriented service rendered by such schools. Instead, the government should explore avenues to work with such schools to ensure greater access to education for those who are less fortunate amongst us. In this vein, we urge the government to consider introducing a graded recognition system that will include such schools and establish realistic standards for all schools. This system would have three standards – Silver, Gold and Platinum, in ascending order or merit, thereby providing incentives for schools to acquire higher standards and/ or maintain their current standards. At the same time, such grading would educate the parent on the facilities and performances of the schools.

To me this reads that they acknowledge that the population they serve is penalized by the realities of harsh poverty and that it takes longer than three years to see any steady gains. But why opt for deregulation and working outside the system? We know from looking at what happens here that charter schools love to finesse with results when they are given any margin to do so.


This think tank also sponsors a voucher system:

http://schoolchoice.in/schoolchoice.php

School Choice Vs present Monopoly System

Over the years, India has tried varied approaches to improve enrolments and the quality of school education. As the latest Pratham survey shows, there is a huge gap between our aspirations and actual achievements. In the process we have created a two tier system of school education. Those who can afford fees go to private schools and those who cannot, go to state schools. This gross inequality of schooling opportunities is the result of our current approach to education.

The school voucher is a tool to change the way governments finance the education of the poor. It is a coupon offered by the government that covers the full or partial cost of education at the school of the student’s choice. The schools collect vouchers from the students, deposit them in their bank accounts and the banks then credit the school accounts by equivalent money while debiting the account of the government. No money actually changes hands, only the voucher moves from the student to the school, and back to the government.

In the present system, the schools are accountable to the government. The voucher system makes them accountable directly to the students since they pay for their education through vouchers. If the student does not like the school, she can take the voucher to another school. Under the voucher system, the money follows the student. In the present system, the money follows the school.

The School Voucher provides:

Choice for students: The voucher empowers poor students so that they can attend a school of their choice. If the school does not meet the expectations, they have the choice to change schools.

Equality of opportunity: The scheme satisfies the basic human right that all children are treated equally and equal opportunity for education is provided to all irrespective of cash, caste or creed.

Competition among schools: Today private Indian schools only compete for the students with money. With vouchers, not only private schools, but also government schools will compete for all students, rich and poor.

Performance based payment: The revenue of a school depends on the number of students it has both who pay directly and those who pay through vouchers. Schools therefore have an automatic incentive to increase enrolments and to improve quality to retain students.

Win-Win outcome: Those government school students who get a voucher are able to change schools and do better for themselves. Evidence suggests that even those students who stay in government schools also perform better. First, the student-teacher ratio improves and second, schools become more attentive to stop student numbers from going down further. All students achieve better learning outcomes.

In a voucher system, instead of funding schools, the government funds students. The resultant choice and competition working together provides universal access as well as improving quality education.

A discredited right wing scheme in the US is getting a facelift and a new rollout in India's urban areas.

[Starry Messenger]

7. more:

http://blogs.america.gov/ip/2010/04/15/teaching-the-teachers-in-india


Teaching Children and Their Teachers in India

— By Guest Author, 15 April 2010

Shaheen Mistri is one of many entrepreneurs coming to the Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship April 26-27 from countries with large Muslim populations. She is founder of Akanksha Foundation and Teach for India, nonprofits dedicated to educating less privileged children in India.

Wendy Kopp is founder and chief executive of Teach for America, a nonprofit that recruits and trains recent college graduates to teach in U.S. urban and rural schools.


Shaheen Mistri:
Through Akanksha and Teach for India we work to eliminate inequity in education in India. Initially, on my part, it was an attempt to learn about myself by teaching children. But the work has outgrown my or anyone’s personal intentions.

Our belief is that every child must have an excellent education to develop his or her potential fully. With this vision in mind, we run after-school centers and schools, and are building a movement of leaders for educational reform.

Not everything has worked out as I expected. But I’ve chosen to focus on the positive and inspiring and on people who want to learn and do something. It has given me a lot of energy and confidence in myself. Having dealt with difficulties, I’ve found out that addressing something bad with something good is much more effective than addressing something bad with another bad.

Our commitment to equal opportunities for all in education is accompanied by a commitment to personal transformation. We believe that you need to change yourself to bring about an external change. This message – that each of us must work to change from within to become the best human being he or she can be – I would like to bring to the upcoming summit on entrepreneurship.

We face tremendous challenges both in India and around the world. Yet, if we can both maximize our potential and create a social ecosystem around us that fosters children’s development and education, our nation and our world will be as we wish it to be.




Wendy Kopp:

When I first met Shaheen in my office in New York, she explained how her experience founding and leading Akanksha had inspired her vision for Teach for India. The new group would enable her to address the main obstacle to Akanksha’s growth – the limited availability of talented people willing and able to teach India’s disadvantaged children. Shaheen was so passionate and so compelling that I flew out to see her in India just a few months later.

I still remember vividly the first week I spent in Mumbai with her in 2007. Most memorable was an Akanksha classroom, where children from Mumbai’s slums were learning with as much focus and energy as those in U.S. urban and rural communities, when given a chance. Shaheen’s belief in the children and love for them came through so powerfully throughout my visit that there was no doubt in my mind that she would lead a powerful movement through Teach for India.

Initially, I was doubtful that Teach for America’s model would prove applicable to the challenges of India. I expected it to be rendered unworkable by the differences in culture and economic conditions. Yet at every turn, I was struck by the similarities – some college students responding with excitement to an opportunity to work with poor kids, and many being indifferent; some school principals expressing a deep belief in their students’ abilities, and others apparently not recognizing that their students could achieve at high levels, despite the challenges of poverty; many business and government officials supporting the Teach for India idea in principle, but doubtful whether the brightest college graduates – future leaders – would join the movement. Eventually, we found quite a few extremely supportive allies in all circles.

This response was so similar to the one I received when I set out to start Teach for America in 1989!

In the summer of 2009, I met Teach for India’s 90 inaugural fellows. I was inspired by their thoughtfulness, their energy, and their passion. Standing in the back of their classrooms in Mumbai and Pune, I saw them changing their students’ trajectories and reflected on how different their own trajectories would be as well as a result of this experience. They would certainly be fighting for their students for the rest of their lives.

Shaheen has inspired a movement that I believe will play a catalytic role in transforming the India’s educational system in a way that provides opportunities for all of its children.

[Catshrink]

13. This isn't what happens here:

"The idea at TFI is, that after two years of teaching experience, a fellow will become a leader, with his class of 20-30 third graders as his organization. The teacher has to lead the students (his organization) towards a goal and therefore, every minute is an earning opportunity."

Chances are, after two years, the "fellow" will be gone:

"*More than 50 percent of Teach for America teachers leave after two years and more than 80 percent leave after three years.
-Teach for America proponents say that the program is aimed not only at supplying teachers to needy schools but also improving the teacher labor supply and shaping individuals who will care about education in their future jobs on Wall Street, in Washington, or elsewhere outside the classroom."

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/teachers/a-new-look-at-teach-for-americ.html

If it walks like a duck...

[Starry Messenger]

16. Agreed Catshrink.

It's the same scheme. TFI is recruiting the same kind of "elites" that are attracted to TFA. I found this article by a young fellow who took time out from his toils in a financial firm in the US to "help" establish TFI:

http://www.oliverwyman.com/ow/12691.htm

About Taylor Jacobson

My name is Taylor Jacobson and I’m an analyst in Oliver Wyman’s Boston office. I spent five months in 2008-09 in and around Pune, India, helping to launch Teach For India, a national movement working to narrow the educational gap by placing India’s most outstanding college graduates and young professionals in low-income schools to teach for two years.

In this article, Gandhiism 101: Learning to Be the Change, I provide an overview of my experiences and my perspectives on education and poverty in India. You can read more about my time in India in my blog, One in a Billion: Reflections from India.

The neo-colonial overtones of this snippet make me queasy:

Joining the movement to transform education
I had come to India to help launch Teach For India. Inspired by Teach For America in the United States, Teach For India recruits outstanding college graduates and young professionals to teach in under-resourced schools for two years.

In that classroom, I observed the reality behind the dour statistics I would use a hundred times in the next five months: In India, the average class size exceeds 40 students and one in four teachers is absent on any given day. In addition, teachers depend on counter-productive methods like rote memorization and corporal punishment.

It’s no wonder that, as a result, less than 50 percent of children reach 5th grade, and only one in ten pass the 10th grade. Many argue that these numbers simply reflect the fact that parents pull their kids out of school to help feed the family. On the contrary, if you aren’t learning anything in school, why would you go?

Working with Teach For India was my chance to combat the vicious cycle between lack of education and poverty while experiencing a host of new people and places. I had this opportunity thanks to a Non-Profit Fellowship Program sponsored by my company, Oliver Wyman, which gives consultants a stipend and time off to work with a non-profit organization of their choosing.

I wanted to accomplish three goals through my Fellowship: first, to live in a developing country; second, to work in the education sector, preferably for a start-up; and third, to learn from a social enterprise guru.

In sum, I wanted to get outside my comfort zone and make an impact, while beginning the journey toward becoming a social entrepreneur myself one day.

Oliver Wyman
http://www.oliverwyman.com/ow/about.htm

About the Firm

Who we are

Oliver Wyman combines deep industry knowledge with specialized expertise in strategy, operations, risk management, organizational transformation, and leadership development. The firm works with clients to deliver sustained shareholder value growth. We help managers to anticipate changes in customer priorities and the competitive environment, and then design their businesses, improve their operations and risk profile, and accelerate their organizational performance to seize the most attractive opportunities.

We have more than 35 years experience serving Global 1000 clients. Our staff of 2,900 operates from offices in more than 40 cities in 16 countries.

Our impact

Whether the challenge is to find new avenues of growth, optimize operations, improve their risk profile, or inspire the organization to act in different ways, clients have confidence that we will make a real impact on their top and bottom lines.

[greymattermom]

2. year around school in India

I have a colleague who visits from India every summer. He didn't bring his family this year because his son only has 1 month off school.

[Starry Messenger]

8. Dell

I guess he felt that Gates had a monopoly on US ed reform. :sarcasm:

http://www.teachforindia.org/partners.php#msdf

Michael & Susan Dell Foundation

Michael and Susan Dell established the foundation in 1999. The gift was inspired by their passion for supporting children's causes as a way to make an even greater difference in a measurable way, particularly for those children living in urban poverty. Based in Austin, TX, the foundation initially focused on improving education and children's health in Central Texas; but their mission soon expanded to reach children globally. To date, the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation has committed more than $530 million to assist non-profit organizations working in major urban communities in the United States and India. Their vision is to focus on opportunities with the greatest potential to directly and measurably transform the lives of children living in urban poverty.

The Michael and Susan Dell Foundation was the founding funder of Teach For India, providing the opportunity and support for Teach For India to begin the movement to eliminate educational inequity in the country.

"The Indian adaptation of the proven Teach For America model concept of selecting the best graduates from leading Indian colleges, and training and mentoring them as they spend two years in government and poor private schools - where they impart fresh ideas and energy within schools, help children substantially and measurably improve their learning levels, and themselves become capable leaders“ appeals to us. The Michael and Susan Dell Foundation supports it fully, and has already made a substantial two year grant to ensure its success in India."

Barun Mohanty, Country Lead, India
Michael & Susan Dell Foundation

http://www.teachforamerica.org/newsroom/documents/092707_TeachForAll.htm

TEACH FOR AMERICA LAUNCHES TEACH FOR ALL
TO SUPPORT DEVELOPMENT OF ITS MODEL IN OTHER COUNTRIES

Michael & Susan Dell Foundation and Amy and Larry Robbins Foundation Are Early Supporters


NEW YORK, September 27, 2007—Today at the Clinton Global Initiative, Teach For America announced its commitment to launch Teach For All, a new organization that will support entrepreneurs in other countries who are pursuing the development of the Teach For America model locally. These local organizations will channel the talent and energy of their countries’ top recent college graduates against educational disparities facing tens of thousands of children in their high-poverty communities. Teach For All was created in partnership with Teach First, an adaptation of Teach For America in the U.K., and with significant start-up support from the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation and the Amy and Larry Robbins Foundation.


“While Teach For America itself remains deeply committed to its own ambitious growth plan in the United States,” said CEO and founder Wendy Kopp, “the creation of Teach For All will enable us to be responsive to those who are working to address educational inequity in other countries and who deeply believe that our theory of change can have a catalytic impact in their context.”


Teach For All will initially support initiatives that are already under way, including those in India, South Africa, Estonia, Israel, and Germany. The local adaptations of Teach For America will be established as independent, locally governed, locally funded organizations. Teach For All will help these local organizations access the knowledge base, tools, and resources that Teach For America has developed over time, provided they establish and maintain certain core programmatic principles and conditions.


Teach For All will raise $25 million over three years for its global operations, and at the same time leverage millions more toward the local programs in each country. The Michael & Susan Dell Foundation has committed a $2.5 million grant to fund Teach For All’s support of the development of Teach For India, and the Amy and Larry Robbins Foundation has also pledged a $2 million grant to Teach For All. The organization has also benefited from millions of dollars in pro bono services from McKinsey & Company.


“Our foundation strives to provide all children, regardless of economic circumstances, with equal access to high quality public education,” said Michael Dell, co-founder of the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation. “India, with its 400 million children, stands to benefit greatly from the development and training of top leaders who can present the wonders and advantages education has to offer. We are pleased to support the international expansion of Teach For America, as its proven approach to placing effective teachers on the ground will ensure that more children in India are given the educational opportunities they deserve.”


The Michael & Susan Dell Foundation’s support of Teach For All is focused on India, where key stakeholders engaged in a 10-week planning process, managed by McKinsey India, to ascertain whether and how the Teach For America model could be adapted to address the country’s vast educational disparities. The plan that emerged calls for Teach For India to place 2,000 high-potential college graduates by 2013 in primary, upper primary, English medium, and regional medium schools in at least a dozen urban and rural communities. Teach For India will recruit India’s top recent college graduates of all academic majors to commit two years to teach in high-need communities and become lifelong leaders in the pursuit of educational excellence and equity.

[Hannah Bell]

10. nah, dell is one the big US deformers too.

Charter schools have become the slam-dunk favorite in some quarters, as though they are the answer to all our current educational woes. They've also pulled in huge amounts of funding from wealthy philanthropists who sought out charter schools that were doing well and provided money for expansion. Some of those big names include: Bill Gates; Eli Broad; Michael Dell of Dell Computer; Doris Fisher, who founded the Gap with her late husband, Donald; and the Walton family.

http://www.care2.com/causes/education/blog/charter-schools-boom-or-bust/.

[Starry Messenger]

11. d'oh! Missed that!

I'm getting goofy from sleep deprivation. Hannah, I just found this link: http://prayatna.typepad.com/education/2009/12/school-choice-national-conference-2009-session-1-summary.html Lots of activity in India in the past year. The passage of a reform bill seems to have brought in a swarm of privatization. I need to get some shut-eye, but I wanted to post this before I dropped another few brain cells. :D

[Hannah Bell]

12. looks interesting. i'd read that school deform had been well under way in the developing world

before it was on the radar here, but i hadn't checked into it much.

skimming your link, noting parallels to the situation here, e.g.

The other by forcing poor quality school operators (both state-run and private schools) who are currently doing an injustice to the lives of so many children, to drastically improve their quality or wind up.

•Unrecognised schools will not be closed down suddenly. They will all be given time and and the opportunity to improve their infrastructure and rise up to meet the requirements of recognition. So there is no need to fear that all the recognised schools will vanish one day leaving a large number of students in the lurch. The Government would not want that to happen.


you know all this shit comes out of the same global think tanks, funded by the same global elites.

[Starry Messenger]

17. My fiance just got back from India, he was visiting Pune.

He has relatives from Iran who finally got out on student visas to India, so he went there to meet them. When he got back, from his descriptions it sounded like a neo-liberal breeding ground and in fact neo-liberalism has been openly practiced there and there are a lot of articles on it. I figured that if that was true, then education was likely to be a target. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the situation exactly parallels what is happening here.

"you know all this shit comes out of the same global think tanks, funded by the same global elites." Yes. And for all their talk about "innovation" they aren't at all creative. Once they have a formula, they stick with it.

[txlibdem]

14. India is shaping up to be one of our competitors in international trade

So I say let them get all the charter schools they want. Their educational quality will suffer and maybe in the long run some good, decent, hard working Americans may get their jobs back.

Charter schools is just another scam to take government money (our money) and funnel it to private companies. This daughter of robber baron banking elites is no different than the privileged incompetents running charter schools in the US. She'll get rich off the underprivileged children of her country.

When is the instant karma supposed to kick in?

[mopinko]

15. have you ever been to india?

lwolf placed as the first factor to fix public education in america-

One more time:

1. Abolish poverty, which is the single most significant factor is student achievement levels.

by that measure the very idea of education in india is a fools errand. i don't use that measure, here or there, but to the extent that there is validity in that statement, education in india is a herculean task.
in india, people sleep in the streets and beg while dodging traffic. they live on the sidewalk under corrugated tin roofs. they have no sewers. they have little clean water. they disfigure children to make them better beggars. you can read about it, but being there brings it home to a whole new level. when i was there i was well cared for at all times, but i still had to overcome the fear of having to fend for myself there. you never know if it is safe to eat or drink. bottled water is resealed and resold. contaminated water is likely used in washing food. i could go on. americans, for the most part, cannot even imagine.

there is just no way to compare education in india to education in the u.s. it is ridiculous. i give kudos to anyone from this country who will to go over there and engage in bringing education to more kids. the task could not be larger or harder.

[LooseWilly]

22. I just got back from India.

I gave an earring to a kid who asked and asked for it while trying to sell me flowers while I was riding in a motorized rickshaw through the traffic jams of Pune. I had a long conversation, in English, with a kid who wanted to shine my huaraches for 10 rupees, so he could save up for a shoe-shine box.

The poverty is just the poverty, and the sleeping in the streets & in the shanties isn't so big of a deal when the temperature rarely dips below 70 F. The government preferring to ignore its natural resources (clean drinking water) in order to allow corporations (including both Coke and Pepsi) to bottle water and be assured of non-stop sales (any Indian diplomatic meeting will feature a bottle of water in front of all the delegates) is the bigger problem. And government funded charter schools in places like Pune and Mumbai is just corporations looking to cull a few rupees in an easy marketplace. If the charter schools start building schools in the rural villages where there isn't already a government school... then they'll earn some "kudos"- but Pune and Mumbai are already centers of education by Indian standards.

(And, as far as the poverty goes, a graduate student at the University of Pune assured me that 65% of Indians are middle class... and, while the thought is mind-boggling by US standards of "middle class", it does say something about Indian perceptions of class & poverty.)

[Starry Messenger]

19. Educating rural India: Can pvt players bridge quality gap?

http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/features/educating-rural-india-can-pvt-players-bridge-quality-gap_467363-0.html

Published on Thu, Jul 01, 2010

Far away from the cut and thrust of running large corporate houses, there’s something that’s keeping Azim Premji and Sunil Mittal, among the most successful entrepreneurs in India, busy. For the last almost 10 years, both have committed serious money, managers and their own time to providing quality education for India’s underprivileged children. They recognise that education has perhaps the greatest “multiplier effect”.

<snip>

It is this gap that Premji and Mittal hope to bridge through the work of their philanthropic organisations, the Azim Premji Foundation (APF) and the Bharti Foundation (Bharti).

APF believes the best way to make an impact is by working with the state education departments to improve learning in classrooms. The logic is simple: With 7 million education professionals (teachers and support staff) and an annual spending of USD 13.5 billion (Rs. 62,000 crore), the government has already achieved scale that no private organisation could equal.

Bharti has chosen to build a parallel system of new schools Satya Bharti schools to provide quality education for free to the rural poor and set new benchmarks on how to educate children. Of course, it does still need to engage with local governments as it relies heavily on partnership from the villages. Typically, the village gives the land free on long lease on which the school is built.

It is not that these two are the only organisations working to find solutions in this field. From Intel to IBM, Deutsche Bank to ICICI Bank, companies are doing some philanthropic work in the education space. Shriram Foundation works with 25 government schools in Haryana; Thermax runs a few civic schools in Pune.

Azim Premji ("The Bill Gates of India" is a frequent moniker)

http://connect.in.com/azim-premji/biography-392.html

Azim Premji is the Chairman of Wipro, one of the largest software companies in India. Its headquarters are in Bengaluru, the Indian Silicon City. Azim Premji was rated the richest person in the country from 1999 to 2005 by Forbes. His wealth in 2006 was estimated at US$14.8 Billion which places him as the fifth richest Indian.

Azim H. Premji was born to M.H. Hasham Premji. His grandfather was the rice king of Burma. His father had declined an invitation from M.A.Jinnah to go to Pakistan. Premji attended St. Mary`s School I.C.S.E. in Mazagaon, Mumbai. He was just finishing his undergraduate engineering studies at Stanford University in 1966 when his father passed away. He immediately returned to India where he took over the family`s fledgling vegetable oil business, Western Indian Vegetable Products Limited (now called Wipro). Premji started off with a simple vision: to build an organization on a foundation of values. He eventually received permission to take correspondence art courses to complete the requirements for his bachelor`s degree in Electrical Engineering.

Premji has been recognized by BusinessWeek as one of the Greatest Entrepreneurs of All Time for his vision and leadership that has been responsible for Wipro emerging as one of the world`s fastest growing companies. Premji is the only Indian to make it to the list.

Sunil Mittal, founder of AirTel http://www.airtel.in/

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2009/10/billionaires-2009-richest-people_Sunil-Mittal-family_EM57.html

#59 Sunil Mittal & family

Net Worth:$7.7 bil
Fortune: self made
Source: telecom
Age: 51
Country Of Citizenship: India
Residence: Delhi
Industry: Telecommunications
Education: Punjab University, Bachelor of Arts / Science,
Marital Status:married, 3 children

Politician's son and former manufacturer of bicycle parts, founded and runs Bharti group with 2 brothers. Flagship Bharti Airtel is India's largest mobile phone operator, with 91 million customers and 24% share of wireless market. Company added 8 million subscribers in latest quarter and launched mobile service in Sri Lanka. Last May Mittal backed out of deal to take over South Africa's MTN opening door for fellow billionaire Anil Ambani's own unsuccessful bid. His Airtel Digital TV, a direct-to-home digital television service, competes with rival Anil's Reliance BIG TV. Formed a joint venture with WalMart in 2007; their chain of cash-and carry stores, branded BestPrice Modern Wholesale, is expected to open this year. Funding a football (soccer) academy in hopes of sending an Indian team to the 2018 World Cup.

It says self-made, but his father helped him out with a 20,000 rupee loan when he was starting out. Daddy was an MP in the Indian government. Today Sunil is India's 4th richest man. He also had a little help from global capital:

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/india/article.cfm?articleid=4306

Mittal: I was raised in Ludhiana, a very industrious town, where almost everybody is an entrepreneur of some kind. It is the bedrock of small-scale industry, the principal industries being cycles or cycle parts, hosiery, or yarn to make knitwear, and light engineering items. Coming out of college with a small amount of capital, one could only do what was allowed in the ecosystem there. I decided to manufacture bicycle parts, in particular crankshafts. It was a hot forging unit that I put up, and that's where I cut my teeth on business.

Knowledge@Wharton: You moved to Bombay in 1980. At that time, your business plans were a little more ambitious. Could you tell us a little bit more about your business ventures at that time?

Mittal: I realized that one could probably make some modest success out of what I started to do in bicycle parts, but there was a limitation. At the end of the day, the manufacturers of bicycles decided how much -- at what price you could supply to them. And just making shafts wouldn't have made you a player of any size or scale.

So, it was very clear that I had to get out of Ludhiana into a much bigger place, Delhi or Mumbai -- Bombay at that time. And I spent about two, three years in Bombay importing a variety of products -- steel, brass, zinc, zip fasteners, plastics -- and eventually bought India's first portable generator. And that was the first turning point in my career.

Knowledge@Wharton: Was that the venture with Suzuki?

Mittal: Yes, that venture was with Suzuki. That's how I got in touch with the Japanese, spent two to three years with them, learning their techniques and practices. I internationalized my concepts, learned the art of diplomacy in international trade. I would say that was the period which gave me opportunities, on the one hand, to make some significantly higher amounts of money than I could have done in cycle trade. More importantly, it gave me independence and experience in marketing, brands, international trade. That held me in good stead later on.

Knowledge@Wharton: What were the main lessons you learned at that point in your career?

Mittal: I think, two or three things. I realized very early on that you need to tie up with some large entities -- much, much larger than yourself. From there on, we set up a string of partnerships, and they were all with very large companies, multi-billion dollar corporations: Suzuki, AT&T, Siemens, Lucky Gold Star (now LG). Suzuki Motor Company was there, of course. We also partnered with British Telecom and Telecom Italia.

So, that is the course I followed: Tie up with large companies. It's easy to say, but large companies intuitively don't ally with small companies or entrepreneurs. So, one had to persuade these large companies, assure them that they needed to be in the Indian market. We also had to convince them that we had a high governance structure despite being a small company, and give them the comfort to join hands with us to exploit and come into the Indian market together.

Billionaires into education reform. We know how that story goes...

[Starry Messenger]

20. India Journal: The Privatization of Indian Education

* May 21, 2010, 9:27 AM IST


http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2010/05/21/the-privatization-of-indian-education/?mod=wsj_india_main

It is difficult to ignore the spicing up that India’s education sector is undergoing. Ubiquitous private coaching centers, front-page ads inviting franchise expansion of schools, and landmark reforms allowing foreign universities to enter India all underscore the changing face of a sector that could best be characterized as lackluster just a few years ago, especially for private entrepreneurs and profit-mongers.

With India’s burgeoning middle-class, mouth-watering demographics and fast-changing government regulation, however, this once boring sector has managed to captivate the attention of capitalists from all corners of the world. From small-town tuition centers to globally renowned universities, from shrewd corporate pundits to leisurely housewives, and from private-equity suits to social-enterprise tweeds, the race to have some sort of stake in the growth of India’s education industry has become almost fashionable.

This year, in particular, has seen a massive inflow of capital and interest into the education sector, with Reliance Equity Advisors’ recent announcement to snap up a 1 billion rupee stake in Pathways Global School, a K-12 education provider; Azim Premji’s decision to invest 2 billion rupees in Manipal Global Education, a education resource provider; and Matrix Advisors’ decision to buy 1 billion rupees into FIIT-JEE, a private coaching provider.

Kapil Sibal, India’s education minister, too, gave an emphatic slap-on-the-back to the sector by comparing its future potential to that of India’s now red-hot telecom sector a decade ago.

<snip>

This vacuum in education management promises to be filled by private entrepreneurs who can utilize their business training and their vision for education reform more effectively. Corporate best practices like performance-based pay for teachers or inventory management of fixed assets like furniture or computers, which are everyday practices in educational organizations around the world, would also be better planned and implemented under guidance from the for-profit world.

The whole article is full of barf-worthy talking points. It was hard to cut it down.

[Starry Messenger]

21. Bharti hikes investment in education sector

Apr 12, 2010

http://www.oifc.in/Article/Bharti-hikes-investment-in-education-sector

The training and education arm of the Bharti group, Centum Learning, plans to invest US$ 22.5 million during the next three years for training school children and expand its presence by opening campuses across the country.

The company has plans to come up with franchisee service training and skill centres to impart employability skills to students of class VIII and IX. By July 2010, these centres will be launched in seven states. Retail, distribution, telecom and automobiles are some of the sectors where training will be imparted.

Speaking at length about the service training centres Mr Sanjeev Duggal, CEO, Centum Learning said that these franchisee service training centres will help in enhancing the vocational employability skills of below-poverty-line students. They will teach relevant skills to students like mobile repairing, installing of direct-to-home (DTH) apparatus and repairing automobiles and scooters, among others.

Along with the training centres, Centum Learning plans to set up 20 higher education 'urban' campuses called 'Centum U' in India. These campuses will be located in various metros and Tier-I cities and will offer courses in subjects like management, finance, economics, media and entertainment.

http://www.linkedin.com/companies/centum-learning-ltd

Centum Learning

Centum Learning Ltd an associate Company of Bharti Group, a $7 billion enterprise with Market Capitalization of $ 24 billion and one of India’s leading business groups with interests in various industry segments.

Centum offers innovative learning solutions to leading Indian conglomerates & MNC’s and a provider of Higher Education in the “Professional Service Skills” domain. We have achieved the distinction of being among the “Emerging Top 15 Leaders in Training Outsourcing Worldwide in 2009” where we share the stage with leaders like Disney Institute, for our work in the corporate L&D space. We enjoy a pan India presence in the Higher Education domain and our unique pedagogy is focused on inculcating Employability Skills. With over 5000 enrollments, our pass ratio is over 86% in the current year. Centum Learning would launch Courses in collaboration with globally renowned Universities and Institutes in various domains in the coming Academic year.

With more than 400 learning and development specialists located across the country, it currently partners with a host of leading organisations such as American Express, Genpact, Maruti Suzuki, Delhi Airport, PepsiCo, HCL, Cummins, LG, Deutsche Bank, Motilal Oswal, Blue Dart, Kaya, CEAT, NIIT Technologies, Punj Llyod etc.

[Starry Messenger]

24. Philanthropy: Sunil Mittal building 550 schools to educate 1 lakh children

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/News-By-Company/Corporate-Trends/Philanthropy-Sunil-Mittal-building-550-schools-to-educate-1-lakh-children/articleshow/6084215.cms?curpg=3

He (Sunil Mittal) studied the US model where individuals and companies had pledged long-term commitments towards philanthropy. In 2006, he visited the Gates Foundation in Seattle and had lunch with Bill Gates’ father. He also went to the Rockfeller Foundation. He was inspired and convinced that direct intervention was the way to go. Early on, there were many challenges, and the biggest was to convince panchayats to allot half acre of land for each school.

<snip>

The community in Sopara, a remote village near Jodhpur, donated stones for a boundary wall and Sriram Mehgwal, an 84-year-old resident, whose grand children attend the school, built it single-handedly. “I am overjoyed to see my grandchildren in this school,” he says.

Soon, the Rajasthan government offered 49 schools in the Neemrana and Ajmer blocks for adoption. It moved existing teachers to other schools and gave the foundation a clean slate. The foundation then invested Rs 5 lakh to renovate each school and hired new teachers. It was a brave move considering the political ramifications of handing over state-owned and run schools to corporates. But, like his businesses, Mittal wanted to scale up fast here too.

The foundation also enjoys the support of companies, especially Bharti’s business partners. “IBM is putting a computer in every school with games and other features that are meant for education. PwC and E&Y are doing the audit of the entire foundation free of cost. Deutsche Bank has adopted four schools and Wal-Mart has adopted one,” says Mittal.

Deutsche Bank’s CEO and managing director (India) Gunit Chadha said that the bank’s partnership with Bharti was aimed at providing quality education to underprivileged children in India. “Even some individuals who got in touch with us and agreed to fund the cost of running, say two or five schools,” said Mr Mittal. Employees of Bharti companies also contribute under a scheme where the company will donate an equal amount.

Anybody know anything about charitable tax breaks for philanthropy in India?

[Starry Messenger]

23. PPP

India's ed reformers are pushing a scheme called Public-Private Partnership.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125731015552427423.html

We Need Statesmanship for Public-Private Education to Work

By S. GIRIDHAR

It is no surprise that the recent announcement by the Minister of Human Resource Development inviting private participation in the creation of model schools in India has stirred up a hornet's nest. I am not referring to the doubts expressed on the potential merit of this initiative. I refer to the hackles that have been raised because of the invitation for private participation.

Private entities are of two kinds. One kind is the Non Governmental Organizations, not-for-profit and civil society institutions with experience and expertise in the domain of education – in curriculum development, teacher training, development of text books etc. The other kind of private entity is the "for profit corporate." The participation of the "for profit corporate" entity is what is being opposed. And the most vocal group against the participation of the "for profit" group is the "not for profit" group.

The battle lines have always existed but have now erupted in the open. There has been a froth of indignant email exchanges among the group that believes that corporate private entities should not be invited to participate in education because it is essentially a public good that should be served only by the government. Recently the Director of National Council of Education Research and Training in an extremely lucid article in the Economic and Political Weekly endorsed the views of this group by saying that inviting private sector participation in government schools is not the correct solution to the problem of poor school quality. The mistrust is deep rooted. The argument is that corporate entities would convert, sooner rather than later, what is supposed to be social responsibility into vested interests for business and profit. The fear is that, over time, the government will abdicate its responsibility to corporate private entities who will then convert the domain into a revenue/business model that irreparably worsens India's social inequity. A couple of valiant voices are trying to argue that such an "anti" position is driven more by ideology than a dispassionate look at the fact that 220 million children in the country are receiving a deplorably poor quality of education.


<snip>

What could the "anti private/anti corporate" lobby do? To begin with, park the mistrust and instead use their tremendous skills of democratic dialogue to yield solutions. Sometimes, when confronted with the seemingly awful question, "Is ideology more important than the future of our children and society?" this lobby must have the patience to explain why the two cannot be separated. There have been worthy experiences with some corporate/for profit organizations whose motives have been noble. Why not use these to take the dialogue forward? This would also be a very effective means to advocate the philosophy and vision of education for our country. Statesmanship is therefore required of this "anti private" group too.

I have had a ringside view of all this for some time now and it is a pity that the "anti private" and "pro- private" groups have always sparred as though the twain cannot meet. There is mistrust and even contempt in the air. Egos and moral high ground seem all important. Even within the "not for profit" group there are people who can barely be civil to each other because they hold opposing positions. But there is no choice. If they truly care for the greater good, they must prove it by coming together. Since I began the article by using PPP as an example to show the schism, let me conclude in the same vein. If the government wants PPP to become a meaningful option they should take the initiative to bring all these groups together and find common ground around the issues of commitment to quality, ethics and an evidence-based approach. Consensus will require statesmanship. Indian school education needs help from all quarters to lift itself from the mire.

—S. Giridhar is head of programs and advocacy at the Azim Premji Foundation based in Bangalore. He can be contacted at [e-mail]


One of his reassurances to anti-privitizers is hilarious:

One: Participate in frank and honest debate with their detractors. Go the extra mile in the dialogue to convince them that corporate intentions can be noble.

Bwah!

[Starry Messenger]

25. Lots of gruesomely fascinating reading today.

No hard strings to pull on. There seems to be a similar fight on to demonize the Indian teachers' unions, starve public schools until people are willing to pay for private alternatives or turn to NGO funded charter schools and similar schemes. The World Bank is involved in the Public Private Partnership initiative, I found some brochures and PDFs but I don't really get finance and math so it's hard for me to translate that stuff. I can't imagine they are doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. Teach for India is madly recruiting with Youtube videos and infomercials. It will be interesting to keep tabs on.

Teach for India has the same philosophy as our Education policy here--that education is the key to lifting children and their families out of poverty. This makes no sense to me whatsoever. It will help some children of course, no doubt, but not all of them. There is simply not a 1:1 relationship of people to well-paying jobs in this whole world. Even if we educate every single child in the world (as I think they certainly should be educated), where are the jobs? Why is there this crushing poverty in the first place? I think it is strange that this is never considered. It's like starting at the wrong end of the egg.

Billionaires are starting their own school systems. OK, the need is there and they are filling it. People are happy with them right now and the government is partnering with them. Isn't this strange? What if the CEO of Verizon opened up his own school system here in the USA? Trained his own workforce in his own schools, with his own corporate philosophy? And then what happens if his business tanks or he gets bored? Lots of questions with answers I don't have.