I am honoured to be with you today. The World Education Fellowship has played an important role in promoting progressive and forward looking educational ideas and practices since its inception in 1921. Similarly, the Indian section of the Fellowship has made significant contribution to education for more than 40 years. I am convinced that the greatest challenge and opportunity in front of our country is education.

According to one report, India could well be the world's third largest economy in less than 30 years from now, after the United States and China. In fact, India could grow the fastest among all countries at an average 6 per cent, going past Italy, Germany and France in the 2015-2025 time frame and past Japan in 2032. Even post-2050, India may continue to clock some of the highest growth rates in the world.

But the report also points out many challenges, which must be overcome along the way.

The biggest challenge is developing our people capability. In the globalized world, there is no doubt that the differentiator between success and failure will be talent, educated talent.

In this area of education, we have a curious phenomenon. At a higher education level, India is a mega education centre. It has over 250 universities, 1100 engineering colleges, over 12000-degree colleges and polytechnics and over 170 medical colleges. In the year 2002-03, over 350000 students entered the portals of the engineering colleges. The pool of technical talent available is one of the largest in the world. 20 million people of Indian origin work and excel in different parts of the world.

However, at the Primary level, we have a gigantic task ahead of us. We need to focus on elementary education because it alone can form a solid foundation for the development of India. Currently, there are more than 50 million children who are out of school and the learning level of children who are in school is far from desirable, or even satisfactory.

Whereas population can be a big liability if we look at the talent equation, our people are fast becoming our biggest asset. And it is education that can make all the difference.

While the growth of IT has brought recognition to the Indian talent worldwide, we have a very rich and long history of education. Look at the wealth of learning and the education which has been passed on from one generation to the next for thousands of years in various fields of knowledge. In most fields the transfer of knowledge has been through a tradition of oral learning with very little of it written down. This is in a large measure true of Yoga, Ayurveda and health remedies, agriculture, performance art or any of the crafts. People passed on the skills along with the rigour of knowledge and human values. It was an integrated kind of an education. As Mahatma Gandhi has been quoted to have said, ‘there is a beautiful tree of knowledge spread all over India’.

After independence, the government wanted to put in to place an education system for the entire population. They also felt that only a population that went to school would allow a more responsible democracy and development to take root. Perhaps the assumption was right but the ground realities were ignored. Gandhi’s ideas about education, where he said that children should learn the dominant craft of the village, produce goods and learn literacy and numeracy at the same time were not made part of the education framework. The pedagogy was largely imported. They were, in a sense alien to our prevalent social practices.

The other priority then was of mass education. Considering that the literacy level in India was about 30%, the topmost priority was to ensure that more children went to school and more adults become literate. The focus was mainly on quantity. This necessitated providing schools in every habitation. It was also assumed that once a school and a teacher were in place, quality would follow. Education got split up unconsciously into – quantity and quality. Education developed a split personality. And like anyone with a split personality, it became rather dysfunctional. To infuse quality into the system became a Herculean task for the successive governments, for the various education bodies and for the citizens. And it continues to be so even today. With the result, neither could we attract the children who were out of school nor could we fully retain those children who were inside the school.

I would like to share with you some key statistics that could throw some light on the status of education today. Over 30 % of the children in the age group of 6-14 years do not go to school. Of the children who go to the school, about 10% are in private elite schools, another 10% in privately managed schools, which are aided by the government and 80% are in the government schools run by the city or village councils. Most of the education efforts set up by private enterprise go towards the top 10%.Out of the children that get enrolled only 42% complete education upto 8th standard and only 16% complete education upto 10th standard. Again, these numbers refer to physically passing out of schools. Many of these children who attend school do not get the benefits of learning anything significant.

As a head of the business, I have the unique opportunity of working with some of the brightest young minds in Wipro. I have also been closely linked with the challenges in education both through the Wipro Applying Thought in Schools Programme and through the Azim Premji Foundation. Based on my experiences, I would like to articulate a few of my thoughts on what could be the goal of Education and what could be the process to get there. I hope you will find them useful as a starting point for your deliberations over the next few days.

Effective education is not only about making education accessible but relevant. It is about defining new relationships between the child and the world around him or her. It is about building self-worth, not taking it away. It is about helping the child to recognise, acknowledge and utilize his or her potential to contribute to the family, society and nation. The first issue therefore, is the relevance of the education. We must keep in mind that the present is as important as the future. The child must learn something that can be related to the present needs. Children must learn what they can use so that they can use what they hae learnt in the future. Children must not only know but experience the power of their knowledge and education. They must be able to perceive that they can now do things they could not do before. This means that we must allow children to make a choice about their learning. They have to create their own databases of knowledge. No second hand knowledge or handed down information will suffice. As they create their own databases of knowledge, they create themselves.

The second issue we must keep in mind is that development is our goal, not learning alone. This means that we have to look at integrated development. Learning must cover not only areas of knowledge or skills of reading and writing but it must also cover inter-related disciplines, physical and intellectual abilities and Values. Character needs to be uncovered, before it can be moulded. In the words of Kahlil Gibran, “No man can reveal to you anything but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge. If he is wise, he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.” Transformation is not so much about putting in new things as much as pulling out whatever is already latent in the person. Training or any other development focus must first identify the dormant talent before trying to hone it.

The third issue is how to make learning joyful. Even today, many schools believe that children should be seen and not heard. Even worse that they should sit still and remain attentive for long hours without speaking or moving. If this were true, we can expect learning to blossom in statues. The underlying assumption among all adults is that children come to the school to learn. To know the truth, we all need to remember the days when we used to go to school. You will realise that if we went to school willing because it was enjoyable and not to learn. We used to go to the school to meet our classmates, to participate in all the activities between classes and outside classes. Children need to learn by doing an activity. They need to learn through doing things themselves. They need to learn through interactions. Children have to act, they have to interpret the world around them and construct their own learning and thereby themselves. The action has to come from within them.

The fourth issue is one of resources. Successive governments have pledged more and more funds into education. The number of NGOs and other organizations working in the field of education has multiplied. It is thus not so much the availability of resources as much as co-ordinating the various efforts so they are synchronized in the same direction. That is when the results will begin to show in a significant way.

The fifth issue is that of the learning environment. It is the environment that creates the right learning experience. The important aspect of children learning is that they are able to learn themselves. They are able to contribute to themselves. What is required is clarity on what we want them to learn. The right mixture of interaction between the teacher and the learner. The teacher should be there when the learner wants but not impose herself when the child is learning all by herself. If intimidation is the dominating emotion, where mistakes are punished mercilessly, children shrivel up and learning is frozen in fear. The environment must be of caring and sharing. This needs teachers who nurture talent and not lawmakers who judge, evaluate and prosecute. The examination must become an opportunity to show off and gauge progress, instead of becoming a day of judgement. The teacher must be seen as a friend and guide who can show the way, because he or she has travelled that road before yet, is open to exploring a new path with the students.

This brings me to the last issue - the teachers in the system. If we want to improve the quality of our education and retain our children in school we must recruit the best processional talent and keep them motivated. Through the Wipro Applying Thought in Schools and the Azim Premji Foundation we have been making major investments in training teachers. We have found there is plenty of talent both within and outside the system. We have also created teaching aids like multi-media kits to make learning interesting and multi-sensory. We need leaders as well as teachers, with a deep passion for education because it is that they make a difference in the lives of others. Teachers thought not so much for external rewards as for their own inner passion and commitment.

There is a story about the famous musician Tansen, who lived in the court of Emperor Akbar. One day, the Emperor asked Tansen whether he had a teacher who had developed this art in him. Tansen replied that he had a Guru called Swami Haridas. The Emperor said, “If you can sing so well, I am sure your teacher can sing even better. Please call him.” Tansen replied that his teacher would never agree to come to the Emperor’s court. If he wanted to hear the teacher, they would have to go to him. So Emperor Akbar, disguised as Tansen’s friend and Tansen went to the forest where the teacher lived. Swami Haridas greeted them warmly and requested them to stay with him. Tansen explained that his friend had come especially to hear the great teacher. Swami Haridas simply smiled. For the next few days nothing happened and Emperor Akbar began to get restless. Suddenly, one night, the teacher started singing. The Emperor was stunned. He had never heard anything quite like that before and he listened spellbound. Unfortunately, when he went to meet the teacher in the morning to tell him about how wonderful the music was, Swami Haridas was nowhere to be found. Tansen was sad. He told the Emperor that since Tansen had brought a stranger here, his teacher had left the house for good. Tansen and the Emperor returned. The Emperor continued to be pensive. Finally, he asked Tansen whether the teacher had taught him what he sang. Tansen said he had and sang the same tune. At the end of it , the Emperor said, you are one of the greatest singers I know . Yet between you and your teacher there is a gap. The magic I heard when he sang is not there in what you sing. “Tansen smiled and said, “Its true. I sing for you. But he sang for the divine being within him.”

Ultimately, education is a process of individual, social and national transformation. The question is not about taking the horse to the water or making it drink. The ideal education system is about making the horse thirsty and pointing where the water is. The horse will then learn to drink by himself.

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