Indian retail comes of age !

When we were kids we were taken for a short 1 day or mostly half a day trips/picnics in school bus , one class at a time to some place inside the city. Aim was to have an outing and give kids a chance to learn and experience things outside their classrooms and books , the places you were taken to used to depend on how old you were. I remember going to see factories which had big machines , centers of science research , planetarium , parks , zoo , museums etc ( depending on what was available in the area). As you grew older , longer outings were planned for a few days with visits to some good holiday spot or a big city , but all these visits had at least one 'industrial visit' as part of the tour to ensure that parents are convinced that kids not only have fun , but also 'learn' something !

Last week , I had visited Bangalore and had to get a few essential household items , so decided to go to a Big Bazaar outlet nearby. This wasn't such a big outlet , it did have ground floor and first floor but this was by far the smallest store i have seen of the retail chain. Guess they have a store every few kms in B'lore . Now as we were entering , my mom and I noticed a long line of young students wearing blue and white uniform with a badge which proclaimed that they were from a school nearby gathering patiently outside the store ; We went in and saw a couple of teachers talking to someone inside the store. We were doing our shopping when we noticed the students entering slowly in a single file ,with teacher in tow constantly reminding them to be quiet and only to look and not touch what is on display. They went slowly through almost all aisles on both floors and were stopped once a while by teachers who kept explaining something And within 15-20 min they had covered the store and slowly moved out. The kids were apparently made 'aware' of super markets , how various items were stocked and got to observe how 'buying and selling' happened in markets !

Guess Indian retail industry really has come of age if 8 year olds are taken to educative field trips in middle class shopping centers ! Big Bazaar has joined the factories , reservoirs , museums as place to observe and learn for kids !!! This is probably a good indicator of how we have changed as a society , i remember things didn't look very rosy initially for organized retail , but slowly but steadily it has surely caught on with Indian middle class !

education-system-when-will-change-come - part 3 : This is how !

I started thinking about the education system when i saw this :

Xo laptop - the $100 laptop developed for school children in third world countries


There is a non-profit arm of the company i work for and they are responsible for spreading OLPC movement in India
Now this is not a plug for my company/OLPC movement .. though i admire both for their efforts.


It was quite an interesting experience to know that children in a school in remote area in Maharashtra were doing their learning in school with laptops and were doing pretty well and enjoying it !


This is about the idea of each school going child owning a laptop and doing his/her work on it ... wont it totally revolutionize the education scene in the country ?

We all agree current education system is not enough , there are 2 main problems currently as i see it.
First is the spread of education and access to it. Second one is the quality of the education provided. Usage of technology would be the solution which would address both these problems.
Once education system embraces technology , it could provide a much better education to children and also would widen its reach.

The whole concept of education will change with laptops/internet entering and digitizing classrooms , the current model of a single person imparting knowledge to 60-70 students in a cramped room, students not getting enough attention , students losing interest/dropping out etc can be significantly reduced.

Schools will once again become places which encourage 'learning' , the teacher becomes more of a facilitator or a mentor who helps the children explore the world through computer and influences their interpretation of what they see/read about.

Since our future is a result of what happens in today's classrooms , its time we stopped making incremental changes to system and take a quantum leap.

If we can build Rs. 1 lac car then cheap and effective laptops will not be difficult for our nation and dream of every school child learning through a low-cost laptop doesn't seem such a wild idea

In case you have doubts whether the children in rural areas/lower strata will learn how to use computers , take a look at OLPC site or at the famous Hole in a Wall project - which gave the idea to writer of the book which became the famous 'Slumdog Millionaire' movie !

Education system - When will the change come ? Part 2

When i started the last post on same topic i took a slight detour while picturing the old classroom , the effort was solely to convey that very little has changed in the system. Its month of March tht means its Class X / Class XII board exam time again .. same old remember Hall ticket ... be in the exam venue on time , do not copy/interact with kid next to you , concentrate ,perform well in the all important exam , the same boring academic rigmarole the system imposes on us... This one test is supposed to determine where u end in life (atleast that's what the kids think or are made to think) that is the system most of us grew up in , some say we are good because of this sytem , maybe or maybe not ... i wud like to believe we made it despite the system !
So this post is my ramble on the current system as i compose this i realise i will make one more post after this !

As i read the newspaper i see stories about how certain kids forgot their hall-tickets and reached exam venues , a few other kids missed their train / got stuck in traffic etc and cudnt make it to exam hall on time . This time all these people called some 'Board Helpline' and informed the powers tht be of their miserable plight. Kids who cudnt make it were allowed to write in nearest centre , the ones who came late were granted extra time to finish their papers , the kids who misplaced their hall ticket were allowed inside !

Thts such a nice story for the newspaper ! But seriously why were the kids made to travel to a far-off centre , why cudnt they give it in a place close their home in first place ? Wud a Hall ticket be needed if the kid is writing exam in the same school itself or cudnt the examination Authorities collect the photo and signature of each candidate . Later along with Qn sheets given to the neutral invigilator at kids own school ,why cant they give a sheet containing Candidate name , photo , signature ?!!!

A poor 15 yr old kid already has the pressure of one exam which (acc to her/him ) will determine where she/he will end up in life ... it doesnt matter if he/she has aced the smaller tests , exams in Class X , it doesnt matter if he or she has topped from Class I to Class IX ... This one exam determines his worth ... at such a young age isnt tht a huge pressure you are putting them under ...

No i wont take talk like survival of fittest etc ! coz my point is this determination of academic worth after 10 yrs of schooling shuldnt be based on a single exam held on one particular day in the year .

Finally doing well in the exam is not just about ur academic worth , its about how well you are handling the stress , how thousand other external/internal factors co-odinate and cooperate with you plus some dollops of luck which determines how you perform in this system . Make no mistake about this -hardwork does pay most of the time .
But when you see external factors like simple forgetting to get ur pen box , vehicle breaking down , traffic jam and a 100 other things make a mess of quite an amount of hard work , you gotto feel for the poor kid being put under such extreme pressure !

So what do we DO about this ?

Proposal 1 :Cant a computerised test like SAT be conducted between say March 1 to March 31 be used instead of all this ! kids can choose their own order of computersied test , they can take their stronger subjects first or move from weak to strong , which ever suits them . Bottomline is technology needs to be used to make the scene better for the students end to end

Proposal 2 : Dont reduce exam to a single chance in an academic year .. give them an opportunity to bounce back from unexpected setbacks . Second chance based on predefined conditions - to be selected when applying for exam
Based on their previous scores / averages the kids can set a minimum and good score for an exam for eg if im strong in English and i expect to score 70 min .. i wud set
the range and if fail to score 70 or above , but at same time score above 50 { min target - 20 } then I can be given a retest chance

On the other hand if im sure of acing say Math and set my min score target as 90 then if i dont score 90+ but score above 70 { min - 20 , again helps to convince the Board tht u r a genuine 90+ type of guy } then u can be given a chance again

Now if u aim to score 70+ and score 42 then u dont get a second shot , same case u get nervous and screw up twice , then u had it coming kid !

[Note :Im just making up a few numbers here for illustrative purposes , but the aim of the exercise according to me is to reduce luck factor , wean away pressure and allow people a fair chance to make a mark]

Proposal 2.1 : Again computerised tests as mentioned earlier to be administered for all subjects , this will help kids with not so good handwriting (esp ppl who write like me ! ) , since no one writes anything by hand anymore , so why insist on result of such a huge exam dependent on someone's handwriting . These days computer corrects everyone's english spelling , so punishing kids for English spelling errors in manual papers doesnt make sense anymore IMO !

PS : Part 3 of this on the way ... now thts connected to education scene but in a totally different way !
PPS : In case you are wondering i did screw up my board exams , but managed to move on and do not so badly after tht but at the same time I did ace another Board exam , so i know how it feels to be on both the sides !