The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Awards programme seeks to transform education

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Apr 01, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Awards programme seeks to transform education

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, MARCH 31. An awards programme that will recognise and showcase pockets of excellence in different types of schools in India will be launched in Chennai on Friday.

The programme is intended to showcase, recognise and enhance effectiveness, establish standards and spread their use across the community of schools, according to Annamalai Muthiah, founder of FutureSchools Foundation, which is hosting the awards programme with the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) India.

The Presidential Awards for Transforming Education: Schooling for the 21st Century was one of a kind in that it sought to recognise excellence "for, of and by educators."

The distribution of the awards would be the culmination of a year-long process that would begin formally in June and end in September 2006 with an international summit at Delhi, he told newspersons here today.

On Friday, a symposium will be held in Chennai to identify the categories of potential excellence and parameters to guide the process. Similar symposia would be held at Coimbatore, Kochi, Bangalore, New Delhi and Dehra Dun where the ISTE India has established centres and/or enlisted member schools.

"By June 2005, the initial nominations for the various awards categories will be finalised at the district and State level," said David Morris, Executive Director, ISTE India, which now had about 400 schools as members.

After the categories of excellence were finalised, ISTE India would write to the schools seeking nominations for the awards process.

The State and city level bodies would form working groups to evaluate, assess, and recognise excellence among the participants, he added.

The participants would be divided into State, Central or International Boards, Open Schools and Special schools and within each group there would separate separate sub-groups as `developing' or `developed' schools. The awards would be presented at city, district and national levels.

The entire awards process was aligned towards this vision of transforming schools into creators of knowledge age workers with 21st century skills.

Corporate support will be enlisted mainly for funding the awards, which will be in cash or some other form. The award winning school should use 50 per cent of the proceeds to help other schools in their neighbourhood.

"We want the corporates to use the funds set apart for their corporate social responsibility projects in a manner that adds value to both sides," he added.

Leslie S. Conery, Deputy CEO, ISTE, who will lead the deliberations on Friday, said the idea was to "listen to educators on the genuine process for transformation that we envision."

Schools interested in participating in the programme can contact Sujaya Rao: 98417 29129.

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