The questions stared her in the face. As a teacher when you are the one who is used to asking questions, it surely is not a pleasant situation. B Sharada Mani, who has been teaching in the Panchayat Union Middle School in Nilgiris district for the past six years, always felt that girl children of the Toda community not only required education, but it also means to escape early marriage. But she didn?t know how to get around the issue. She knew the root cause of the problem, though. The community staying around the Nilgiris in South India has a high rate of illiteracy.
Responding to the situation, Intel Teach programme took up the challenge of educating the children of the tribe. Besides equipping the Toda community children with 21st century skills like IT literacy, Intel played a pivotal role in eliminating child marriages from the community. Intel Teach is a professional development programme that helps teachers to usher technology into classrooms by promoting problem solving and critical thinking to enhance student learning.
Using project-based learning method, Mani involved her students in doing research on social evils like illiteracy and child marriage. It exposed the students to the 21st century skills, while working on a project that involved a local issue. The girls initially shied away from the project, but gradually opened up and spoke about their miseries. The boys, too, stepped in because they also did not want child marriage to hamper their community?s progress. Ultimately the efforts paid off when a child marriage was opposed right outside a temple in the village.
Similarly, Rachna Agarwal who teaches science and mathematics in a Government Girls Inter College in Dehradoon, didn?t know how to get students interested in mathematics and science. When she started using Intel?s Technology Aided Learning, it got students hooked to her subjects. The use of computers in teaching increased the student attendance.
Jayashree Dharmadhikari, a teacher at the Chogle High School, Borivali, Mumbai, was also trained under the Intel Teach programme. Empowered with her newfound knowledge, she and her students created a project on wet garbage management. They learnt how to segregate dry and wet waste (vegetable peels and food) and use the same wet waste as manure for plants. These children then passed on the newfound knowledge to others around their colonies.
The Intel Teach programme, which has been running successfully in rural India in partnership with local governments and communities for the past ten years, recently reached a million mark. ?A million trained teachers would mean many more well-learned students?, is the philosophy that keeps Intel going. Till date, the programme has trained more than five million teachers in more than 40 countries.
Intel does not see it as a business initiative. Rahul Bedi, director, corporate affairs, South Asia, Intel, says it explains the fact that they never cut down on their teacher training programmes even in times of slowdown. He adds, ?The Teach programme for us is not a direct investment. We are not looking at any short-term gains. The fact that we are investing in knowledge economy and in creating more educated young minds, who will probably be more computer-savvy tomorrow, is the only gain, if you may call it so.?
Intel has a big product basket of processors, chipsets, desktops, notebooks, motherboards, mobile Internet devices, servers, software, consumer electronics and workstations. The IT major, says Diptarup Chakraborti, a principal research analyst in the Gartner Technology and Service Provider Research group, is rightly looking at a programme that has more of a long-term benefit. ?It?s the kind of programme that might not have an immediate benefit, but it will have a cascading effect,? says Chakraborti.
Experts see it as a corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative. Chiranjit Sen, who teaches economics and public policy at IIM-Bangalore, sees the programme as sustained CSR activity, which looks at bringing in learning reforms in the country.
Rahul Banerjee, who teaches computer engineering at BITS Pilani, too sees it as an enabling initiative that has a two-fold return. ?It is an investment in the future of knowledge economy. It will benefit both the society and the corporate. It will benefit the society because it is a sustained serious effort in the right direction. However, it shall have a few spin-off effects that would benefit the corporates in the long run.?
Niraj Raj Bansi, who teaches international business at All India Management Association, sees the connect loud and clear. ?Education today is a big business opportunity. So, CSR in education is the corporate way of understanding that market as well as doing good humanitarian work in the right direction.?
CSR has always been a regular activity with a lot of corporates, but now many IT majors are getting involved in elementary education. And probably for a reason. Goldman Sachs counts the lack of quality education as one of the 10 factors holding India back from rapid economic growth. Analysts say it in turn raises costs, including salaries as firms vie for the best IT recruits, and reduces firms? competitive edge.
Intel is not alone in it. In June this year, Microsoft India announced an investment renewal of $20 million in the education space over the next five years. The company also renewed its commitment to the India chapter of’ Partners in Learning, its global educational programme, which allows students, teachers and institutions to reach their full potential.
Infosys, too, spent $175 million on training and education in 2008-09 despite the slowdown. The company has various programmes running simultaneously trying to make more and more students and teachers competitive.
The Azim Premji Foundation, too, is doing its bit for primary education. The list is long. And as long as it?s a win-win situation for both the company and the community, who?s complaining!