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CNBC-TV18's special show Young Turks is on a mission to stir things up in India’s education sector driven by logic that Indian schools need, better ideas and not necessarily more money. 35-year-old Sharath Jeevan founded STIR Education with the aim of driving change in our primary education system, STIR Education works to identify, test and scale up promising grass-root micro innovations to improve learning.
Sharath Jeeven, Founder & CEO, STIR Education is on a mission to transform the lives of the world’s poorest urban children. He founded STIR Education in February of 2012. The venture tries to find innovative teaching practices and chooses the best ones with the idea of replicating and scaling them up. STIR then works with teachers, government, private sector and NGOs to ensure wider reach.
An example of an innovation nurtured by STIR is an idea practiced at the Deepalaya School in New Delhi. Teachers at Deepalaya encourage students to do surveys which help them in learning the statistics works in the real world. Sharath claims this innovation has resulted in a 100 percent improvement in children who feared maths. Having already reached at 18 schools in Delhi in just eight months of operation, STIR Education has raised closed to a million dollars funding and Sharath now wants to make the venture financially sustainable.
Below is an edited transcript of Sharath Jeevan's interview with CNBC-TV18
Q What are your strategies to expand STIR?
A: We are looking at a number of models to be more sustainable. For example, lot of services that schools might be able to use and because we are working with a lot of the schools, we do not need to charge very much per school. So it can be very accessible to schools. We are helping to improve the education system, so that the government can cover some of the costs of this programme because they are getting good ideas that are being spread and helping their goals about increasing the quality of education in their communities also.
STIR has also taken the task of helping students improve their writing skills. For instance at Deepalaya, teachers like Jasbir ask students to write letters to them in Hindi articulating the challenges they face in their lives. Jasbir uses this experience as an opportunity to monitor language and encourage creative writing as opposed to learning by rote. This innovation in the classroom has not only improved the learning process but has also helped forge a deeper teacher-student bond.
STIR also works towards improving the quality of educators by holding classes once a month like the one at a madrasa or a school for children from the Muslim community in Delhi, Seelampur. Principal here, Sajid, encourages teachers to lead by example as opposed to talking down to students.
STIR works with teachers, helping them improve drop-out rates and making the class more interactive even as it works with schools on bringing in teacher accountability.
Also read: Mentor Together a guide to make better choices in life
Q: With 25 teacher innovation currently being practiced, what is the road ahead for this young entrepreneur?
A: With 400 million children’s onus across the country, we would like the STIR to be there in the major cities across the country. We also want this to be an international network, the best ideas can go from India to Kenya and to Brazil. I would like to work with over 500 ideas over the next five years around the major parts of the world.
While going international is on the radar, Sharath himself has set the target to reach out to 3 million children in the next five years. With an eye on children who have very little to make them smile, he believes education is the best gift people can give. He plans to add to his network of institutes which include the likes of Pratham, Bharti Foundation and the Azim Premji Foundation, Sharath is set to create low cost but high impact classrooms across the country.
http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/special-videos/why-indias-primary-education-system-needsstir_799281.html
Sharath Jeeven, Founder & CEO, STIR Education is on a mission to transform the lives of the world’s poorest urban children. He founded STIR Education in February of 2012. The venture tries to find innovative teaching practices and chooses the best ones with the idea of replicating and scaling them up. STIR then works with teachers, government, private sector and NGOs to ensure wider reach.
An example of an innovation nurtured by STIR is an idea practiced at the Deepalaya School in New Delhi. Teachers at Deepalaya encourage students to do surveys which help them in learning the statistics works in the real world. Sharath claims this innovation has resulted in a 100 percent improvement in children who feared maths. Having already reached at 18 schools in Delhi in just eight months of operation, STIR Education has raised closed to a million dollars funding and Sharath now wants to make the venture financially sustainable.
Below is an edited transcript of Sharath Jeevan's interview with CNBC-TV18
Q What are your strategies to expand STIR?
A: We are looking at a number of models to be more sustainable. For example, lot of services that schools might be able to use and because we are working with a lot of the schools, we do not need to charge very much per school. So it can be very accessible to schools. We are helping to improve the education system, so that the government can cover some of the costs of this programme because they are getting good ideas that are being spread and helping their goals about increasing the quality of education in their communities also.
STIR has also taken the task of helping students improve their writing skills. For instance at Deepalaya, teachers like Jasbir ask students to write letters to them in Hindi articulating the challenges they face in their lives. Jasbir uses this experience as an opportunity to monitor language and encourage creative writing as opposed to learning by rote. This innovation in the classroom has not only improved the learning process but has also helped forge a deeper teacher-student bond.
STIR also works towards improving the quality of educators by holding classes once a month like the one at a madrasa or a school for children from the Muslim community in Delhi, Seelampur. Principal here, Sajid, encourages teachers to lead by example as opposed to talking down to students.
STIR works with teachers, helping them improve drop-out rates and making the class more interactive even as it works with schools on bringing in teacher accountability.
Also read: Mentor Together a guide to make better choices in life
Q: With 25 teacher innovation currently being practiced, what is the road ahead for this young entrepreneur?
A: With 400 million children’s onus across the country, we would like the STIR to be there in the major cities across the country. We also want this to be an international network, the best ideas can go from India to Kenya and to Brazil. I would like to work with over 500 ideas over the next five years around the major parts of the world.
While going international is on the radar, Sharath himself has set the target to reach out to 3 million children in the next five years. With an eye on children who have very little to make them smile, he believes education is the best gift people can give. He plans to add to his network of institutes which include the likes of Pratham, Bharti Foundation and the Azim Premji Foundation, Sharath is set to create low cost but high impact classrooms across the country.
http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/special-videos/why-indias-primary-education-system-needsstir_799281.html
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