| My attendance at a conference in IIT Delhi on ‘Excellence in School Education’ had me pen down this thought for my page in between presentations. Each presentation left me wondering at the low standard of work in education and the lack of research. This point was even highlighted by Prof. Choudhary who had convened the workshop. If you compare education with any other sector in India the biggest area of difference is the lack of research and development to improve the overall quality of education. True there are government organizations like NCERT and the likes that are doing this, but like all government organizations they have their limitations. Research at the private level hardly exists. In fact most schools are experimenting! But the question is at what cost? If we take a leaf from other industries even small sized units boast of an R&D division that strives to create products or services for the future. Normally schools are so lost in ensuring quality for the present that this thought has not occurred to most institutions in India to create a R&D division that looks at various aspects of education and institutional management. Creating schools of the future is not just about new technology it is about simple home grown innovation and ideas that improve quality. This will only happen if you can set aside time, money and resources to encourage research in the file of education.
Make a beginning somewhere this NewYear, share your best practices with other institutions and educators. Why should someone else reinvent the wheel which you have already done? You call yourself a learning institution, what is your use if the school next door does not learn from you. Go out reach out to other educators in your locality or city or country and share your learning. Get back to the good old days of education when people wrote to fellow educators and updated or taught them new things that they had learned. With technology enabling us, this is very easy and economical. Start your blogs and write you mind, share it with others, let them learn, don’t limit your teaching to just your students; the society and other institutions need you as much.
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At Mentor we are flooded with requests to cover schools and highlight their achievements, what is sadly missing is the fact that very few educators come forward to share best practices and experiences that can benefit other schools. Please take some time out to write to us, maybe your inputs could improve some schools functioning and help hundreds of children grow to being more useful to society. We at Mentor have made a resolution that we will go beyond this magazine and provide you with an exclusive online platform where you can interact and learn from fellow principals and institutional heads. You should hear from me on this soon. Along with this issue I am happy to present to you The Mentor Planner 2010, Have a great year 2010!!
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