People

Purposive philanthropist

For socio-economically disadvantaged higher secondary school students in Tamil Nadu’s rural Erode district (pop. 2.5 million) pursuing tertiary education was a distant dream until Ram Duraiswamy, a US-based NRI (non-resident Indian), decided to lend a hand. In December 2003, he promoted the Toplight Educational and Social Trust in Chennai to identify academically bright but economically challenged class XII students and fully fund their college education.

Since then the trust has funded 102 students from the district who are currently enrolled in colleges across Tamil Nadu. "As a first-generation degree holder from an agrarian family, I am well aware of the benefits of higher education. Providing capable but economically disadvantaged students opportunities to pursue higher education is my way of giving back to society," says Duraiswamy, an engineering alumnus of Madras University, with a Masters from the University of Texas.

After postgraduation Duraiswamy signed up with software major Oracle for two years before co-promoting Kintana, an IT governance software firm with two friends in 1995. In 2003 after a successful run, Kintana was acquired by Mercury Interactive with whom Duraiswamy served as vice-president before he decided to call it quits. Currently he is a San Francisco-based software consultant.

To manage the Toplight trust, Duraiswamy roped in his uncle K.S. Palanisamy, former director of research at the Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, Chennai, as managing trustee. With the help of volunteers in Erode and Chennai, the trust identifies meritorious but needy students. "We have established a good rapport with state education officials in Erode district who connect us with school headmasters to identify bright students. The trust gives preference to orphans, children of single parents and widows, and those with many siblings. Thereafter we visit their homes to assess their socio-economic condition and persuade parents to allow them to continue their studies. Currently our scholarships are restricted to students who have chosen maths or biology as their main subjects in higher secondary, as they have better scope for employment," says Palanisamy.

The motivation and support offered by the trust has reaped rich dividends. The 102 students funded by Toplight are proving their potential in reputed government engineering colleges, teacher training institutes, medical, nursing and agriculture colleges, while some have secured employment in software and other firms.

For the future, Duraiswamy is keen on expanding the catchment area (number of schools and students) of the trust. "We want to fund 1,000 scholars by the year 2012 and also provide job security to students. Our motto is ‘inspiration, motivation and realisation’ and we can proudly say that we have not only inspired students to study hard and avail of college education, but also philanthropists who want to set up similar trusts to serve the cause of education," says Duraiswamy.

Right on, brother!

Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)

Victoria emissary

The word is obviously out that fast-track, shining India, stuck with inadequate tertiary education capacity, is perhaps the world’s largest market for foreign universities. With an estimated 100,000 students heading abroad for higher education every year, the number of student recruitment delegations from abroad arriving in India is multiplying exponentially. With tuition fees in the US and UK hitting circuit breakers, Indian students have discovered Australia as an offerer of relatively cheaper and globally accepted higher education. To showcase Aussie universities in southern India, the Victoria Government Business Office, Bangalore (estb. 2005) invites varsity delegations to recruit students, enter into collaborative partnerships with Indian education institutions and corporates and to invest in India.

The latest delegation to visit Bangalore on September 26 from Victoria was led by Dr. Dahle Suggett, deputy secretary, Office of Learning and Teaching, department of education and training, Victoria. "Indians are the largest nationality enrolled in education programmes in Australia and over 50 percent of them enroll in institutions in Victoria where 26 percent of all students are Indians followed by Chinese students (23 percent). With the software industry booming, study programs in computer science and information systems are very popular with Indian students. We are here to consolidate this relationship and enter into strategic research partnerships with institutions of higher education," says Sugget, an education postgraduate of Monash University with a doctorate awarded by the University of Melbourne.

Suggett is well qualified to market Oz and Victoria in particular, as a tertiary education destination. Starting her career as a teacher in Victorian government secondary schools, Suggett signed up as assistant commissioner of the Commonwealth Schools Commission. In 1998, she switched streams and signed up with Allen Consulting Group as a consultant (1998-2004) prior to accepting her current assignment with the Victoria state government.

According to Sugget, of the 38,848 Indian students enrolled for study programmes in Australia in 2006, 19,487 study in Victoria. "The student inflow into Victoria has increased because universities in Melbourne are innovative, flexible, provide supportive learning environments and have very strong research and development capabilities. In addition Melbourne has been consistently ranked as the world’s most livable city by the Economist Intelligence Unit (UK) since 2002," she says.

Looking to the future, Sugget feels that academic cooperation between India and Australia is poised for a giant leap, with new partnerships involving short-term student and teacher exchange programmes at the secondary school level on the drawing board. "We have established excellent synergistic partnerships at the university level. Now we would like to explore possibilities of partnering with secondary schools for teacher and student exchange programmes. We are discussing this with a few CISCE-affiliated and international schools, and hope to expand India-Australia academic cooperation," she says.

Srinidhi Raghavendra (Bangalore)

Conflict resolution counsellor

Barbara Coloroso, a US-based expert on non-violent conflict resolution, recently visited Woodstock School, Mussoorie for a week-long series of keynote presentations and faculty and student counselling sessions. The objective of her visit was to educate faculty and students on ways and means to build democratic and harmonious relationships within the institution. Woodstock (estb. 1854) is an internationally respected K-XII co-educational residential school with an aggregate enrollment of 474, including 279 students from non-SAARC countries, offering the Advanced Placement and British IGCSE curriculums.

An acclaimed author who has written seven books on issues ranging from parenting and school bullying to healthy family dynamics, Coloroso based her lectures and workshops at Woodstock on her bestselling book The Bully, the Bullied and the Bystander (Harper Collins, 2004). "Bullying is a common problem in schools worldwide. It happens because there is an imbalance of power between those who intimidate and those who feel powerless to stop injustice, either from within the situation or as witnesses to bullying," says Coloroso, an alumna of the University of Northern Colorado who has recently published her latest book Extraordinary Evil: A Short Walk to Genocide (Nation Books, 2007).

According to Coloroso, the antidote to bullying or ragging of fresher or junior students by older ones is development of an "ethic rooted in deep caring" within the institutional culture. In her sessions with Woodstock’s 100-strong faculty from ten countries, she stressed the importance of teachers — particularly in boarding school environments, traditionally associated with brutal ragging and the lash — creating "humanised climates". "In a boarding school, educators include residence staff and dorm parents. Supervising students 24/7 can either be a risk or an opportunity for doing great things. Sometimes in residential education environments, the line between school and residential life gets blurred. School is academics but residential life, though educational, must remain essentially ‘home’. Teachers must not only strive for excellence in academics, but also in parenting," says Coloroso, whose visit to the school was sponsored by the Winterline Foundation, a US-based non-profit trust which encourages the transformation of individuals into global citizens.

Therefore Coloroso advocates creating cultures of inter-dependence in education institutions, particularly those in remote locations, which are becoming popular with the aspirational Indian middle class who want to get their children away from the country’s incrementally polluted and uninhabitable cities. "Teaching children by example to create caring, sharing and helpful communities will go a long way to reshape communities the world over," she says.

This is sane advice to the managements and faculties of India’s boarding schools which urgently need an image makeover.

Alex Hoekstra (Mussoorie)