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Speech delivered at the 'Wipro Applying Thought in Schools : Quality Initiative programme'
Azim Premji, Chairman, Wipro Corporation

June 21, 2002

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is my great pleasure to be with you today. I sincerely thank all of you for being here.

I would like to share some thoughts that I have about the need to significantly improve the quality of education in India. I personally believe that it is only with a quality education system that we can prepare the current and future generations to create value for our nation. It is a single-minded focus area for us in Wipro as well as in Azim Premji Foundation, and we have decided to put all our resources behind it.

In a vast country like India, education is faced with both "reach" and "quality" dimensions. By "reach" I mean the issues like low literacy, high drop out rates and inadequate - both in terms of quantity and quality - access to education. On the other hand, quality means - majority of the students meeting the expectation of the Minimum Level of Learning already laid down, issues such as focus on creative thinking, problem solving skills, life skills, application of knowledge etc.

As most of you would probably be knowing, there are nearly 1 million schools in India and there are 2500 accredited teacher training institutes which pass out 2,50,000 teachers every year. Currently there are 5 million teachers in the various schools teaching 300 million school going children in the age group of 6-18. While on the one hand there are many children who still do not have the access to proper education with the necessary facilities and infrastructure, the ones who have access to proper education are limited by a system which does not equip them adequately with skills to meet challenges in the world of tomorrow. Both parents and children are not able see the relevance of education to their day-to-day life.

Keeping the above issues in mind we launched two separate initiatives in education. The first one, the Azim Premji Foundation, addresses the issue of universalisation of elementary education.

While most of the state governments are trying to resolve the access issue, a huge amount of work needs to be done about "improving the quality of education". We at Azim Premji Foundation are convinced that it is the quality of education and what happens in the school that would provide a sustainable solution to the universalisation of elementary education. Therefore, for the next three years, all our initiatives will focus on improving the quality of education in the Government schools, primarily in the rural areas.

The second programme - "Wipro Applying Thought in Schools" goes one step further in terms of improving the quality of education by creating a completely different "paradigm" towards creativity and thinking differently. The programme is aimed at inculcating problem solving and creating thinking skills among the children. In the urban schools, where access to basic education is comparatively easier, quality of education needs an overhaul. There is too much emphasis on memorization skill at the cost of all the other skills. The focus is on how to beat the system and score the maximum. The gap between what the workplace demands, and what the schools and colleges are producing, has only increased, as education system has remained largely unchanged over the past several decades.

In this scenario, the need is to equip our teachers with newer teaching-learning methods and competencies by which they can help build the problem solving skill among the students. The "Wipro Applying Thought in Schools" programme helps teachers to do just that. The initial reports and the feedback that we have received from the schools that have participated in the project have been extremely positive and this has given us the confidence to extend the programme to more schools across more cities.

However, teacher re-skilling alone is not sufficient. While teacher is the key change agent in classroom, she needs to be supported by the entire system, namely, the school management, the education boards and the regional as well as national bodies. If education has to change, then all the dimensions of education viz- curriculum, evaluation, and pedagogy have to be aligned to maximize the impact of this change.

This need for alignment prompted us to construct a platform for the like-minded people -the Wipro Forum For Quality in Education - for people who feel an acute need for change in the field of education to come together. These are the people who believe that a significant change is needed in the way education is imparted.

Ensuring quality in education is an ambitious target and we are committed to make it a nationwide success. We realize that quality can come about only through systemic changes and those would depend on the participation of all the stakeholders in the education system. Thus, today we have all of you - who have gathered here to make this change happen. This change has to be brought about at all levels in the system -macro as well as micro.

The Wipro Forum is where all of us can work together to make the change happen. The future will see not only a difference in the way education is imparted but also in the way it is received, imbibed and the value it adds. The future is not what will happen but what we make it to be.

Azim Premji

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