People

Francis Fanthome, MP

Francis Fanthome the high-profile, go-getting chief executive of the Delhi based Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) which has 1,392 of India’s most highly-rated schools affiliated with it, has been nominated a member of Parliament by President Abdul Kalam to represent the minority Anglo-Indian community. An alumnus of St. Joseph’s College, Allahabad and Gorakhpur University who began his career as a teacher in St. Joseph’s College, Darjeeling in 1973, taught at the Doon School (1976-82) and served as principal of the Tashi Namgyal Academy, Gangtok (1983-89), Fanthome has been chief executive and secretary of CISCE since 1992. Since then the number of top bracket schools affiliated with the council has risen from 450 to 1,392. Among them: Welham, Mayo Girls, Doon School; La Martiniere, Lucknow and Kolkata; Loreto House, St. Paul’s and St. Joseph’s, Darjeeling; Bishop Cotton Bangalore and Shimla.

"As a parliamentarian, I’ll make every effort to ensure that the Vision India 2020 of President Abdul Kalam is realised by pragmatic planned processes and delivery mechanisms addressing the concerns of the nation’s children," promises Fanthome.

Unsurprisingly, Fanthome believes that universal quality education is the prerequisite of India’s faltering development effort. "Education is the cultural identity of Indian civilization, and in India we have always valued education, indeed celebrated it. It is like air and water for the psyche of the people," he says fervently. Even though he is pleased about the promised hike of annual education expenditure to 6 percent of GDP he believes it is inadequate. "The outlay for education should be 10-12 percent initially after which it can be moderated at 6-7 percent. This is required to clear the education backlog and for future growth and national development."

In particular, education of girl children is a cause very dear to Fanthome which he intends to push in Parliament. "I’m absolutely convinced that the nation cannot develop unless women contribute and participate equally in nation building. Currently only 22 percent of girl children go to school, with the remainder disempowered. If we want our youth to be creative, participative, committed, loyal, nationalistic, and fearless, it is necessary to first educate the women who will develop these characteristics in their children. A nation cannot achieve its full potential without women participating in the nation building process," explains Fanthome.

With a proven and committed champion of universal quality-driven education now in Parliament, one can be certain that this neglected sector ignored by successive governments will move higher on the national agenda.

Autar Nehru (Delhi)

Eleventh hour saviour

Pestello (right) with Blackburn: teacher training priority

"Our mission is to establish a school which recognises the individuality of each child and aims to nurture and develop her innate potential. Each learner has an individual learning plan which addresses his/ her needs. We not only offer academic education of global standards, but also focus on the holistic development of our students. Consequently training in soft skills such as self-awareness, effective communication, leadership, environment awareness and conservation, sports, art, music, spiritual space, etc are part and parcel of the life skills curriculum," says Pestello, who has a string of degrees in education and economics plus a doctorate in education and administration from the universities of Minnesota and Colorado.

Recruited into the top slot at AVRS at the eleventh hour following the abrupt resignation in June of Kabir Mustafi former principal of Bishop Cotton School, Shimla, who had been designated the first director of the about-to-be inaugurated school, Pestello who was then director of the International School Bangkok (1997-2004), brings a welcome baggage of over three decades of transnational teaching, teacher training, administrative and consultancy experience to AVRS. He has provided consultancy services to international schools in over 17 countries including India, China, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Canada and the US.

"Teacher training, continuous learning and upgradation of skills and best practices will be top priority at AVRS. Every teacher undergoes an in-depth eight-week training and orientation programme before she actually starts managing classes. Moreover we encourage and sponsor our teachers to attend teaching and teacher-training conferences/ seminars at national and international levels, so that they can observe, study and interact with peers to learn and implement new pedagogies at AVRS," says Pestello.

According to Pestello, the faculty-student ratio at AVRS will never exceed 1:10 and the teaching-learning process will be cognitive and interactive. Currently AVRS has 24 full-time teachers facilitated by a junior school administrator ministering to the school’s 102 students. "Our immediate goal is to train our teachers and familiarise them with globally benchmarked best teaching practices. To this end, teachers from the best schools in India and abroad will be invited as visiting faculty in various subjects. Right now Dr. Guy Blackburn, a US based education consultant, is acquainting our teachers with the dimensions of learning. At AVRS we are absolutely convinced that the defining characteristic of an excellent school is the quality of faculty. And we are determined to develop the best faculty in AVRS," vows Pestello.

By all indications the ill wind which prompted Siddhartha to sign up Pestello at the eleventh hour has infused a genuine search for excellence into the high-promise Amber Valley School.

Srinidhi Raghavendra (Bangalore)

New pre-school pedagogy author

Natarajan: strong foundation education proponent

In pursuit of this objective in 2002, Natarajan promoted The Krida Foundation, a non-government organisation devoted to education research and teacher training. Krida offers a new structure and provides curricular content to pre-KG and KG schools, which admit children in the age group of two-six. "In our opinion the Montessori system is not suited to the Indian environment. On the other hand the Krida curriculmn with its holistic and child-centric approach to education has been designed to stimulate the interdependent physical, sociological and intellectual development of every child," says Natarajan, a commerce postgrad of the University of Madras and education alumnus of Annamalai University, and currently principal of the Saraswathi Vidyalaya Matriculation Higher Secondary School Chennai, one of three education institutions promoted by his mother K. Saraswathi in 1956.

Natarajan’s strong convictions are born out of his 19 years of teaching experience and study of schools in Switzerland, England, Italy, USA, and Australia and providing consultancy services to several schools in Tamil Nadu. As director of Krida, he has drafted its curriculum for early childhood education and designed the foundation’s novel teacher education programme. Moreover Krida has a collaborating contract with the University of Madras to provide in-service training to teachers.

The Krida pre-school curriculum which has already been tried and approved by several schools in Chennai, blends the best practices of internationally accepted pedagogies such as Montessori, Froebel and High/ Scope philosophy of the US with Indian values and culture to foster independent thinking and creativity in classrooms. As a first step towards implementing the Krida philosophy, teacher orientation programmes and workshops are being conducted in several schools. Krida’s teacher training programme which began in September this year consists of a six-month part-time course priced at Rs.6,000 and a short term course for parents interested in a teaching career or planning to promote a school

"The work we are doing requires a lot of time and patience but what’s encouraging is that schools and teachers are eager and willing to experiment with new pedagogies which enable children to assimilate knowledge joyously. We have offered our three-month training modules to seven city schools and the feedback is very positive. We plan to provide in-service training to many more teachers to ensure wider acceptance for the Krida programme. In time the foundation will become a resource base for pre-primaries and provide a textual and activity based curriculum," says Natarajan who is convinced that providing children a strong foundation ab initio at the pre-primary stage will go a long way towards their all-round development and as they move up the education system.

Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)

Bhatnagar prize winner

Ramdorai: pure science neglect alarm

Dr. Sujatha Ramdorai, associate professor of mathematics at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai is the winner of the prestigious Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar Prize for 2004-05 awarded by the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) for her research studies in mathematics.

An alumna of Bangalore’s St. Joseph’s College (physics, chemistry, and mathematics) Ramdorai was awarded her Masters by Annamalai University and Ph D by TIFR in 1991-1992. Following her doctorate in mathematics, Ramdorai went abroad for post-doctoral research studies to the University of Regensburg in Germany and Ohio State University. "It was at this time that I completely immersed myself in mathematical research and discovered the joy of study and interaction with my European and American counterparts," says Ramdorai.

She despairs that pure science education — especially research — is dangerously neglected in India. "This will show up in the next ten years, and by then it will be too late to remedy the situation. Government allocations for science and research are inadequate. Teachers have no incentive to teach or research and at this rate, university graduates soon won’t be acceptable to industry," she laments.

Not that the situation is irredeemable. "Good teaching flows out of quality research. And the inadequate government funding of research needs to be supplemented by corporate India which is the prime beneficiary of research. For this to happen universities should enjoy complete autonomy as they do in the US and Europe. There is no shortage of excellent research personnel. But to give their best they require supportive environments and policies," says Ramadorai whose major preoccupation is mathematics research and guiding research students.

Mona Barbhaya (Mumbai)