He will continue to do this till this other school gets its own teacher. He is not sure, but he thinks it's just a matter of a fere months now. Meanwhile, he has taken it upon himself to keep the classes going, so the kids don't lose a whole year. He smiles and looks like the Buddha.
Education is the possibility of building something better-a better future, a better community, a better society, a better world. But what really is education? What does it mean to build a better future? And how does one build this future beyond the metropolitan cities and the schools for the elite.
In this collection of essays, Anurag Behar takes us to schools in the remote villages of India. He gives us an insight into where our nation stands on education and, through that lens, into the nation itself. Behar shows us an India that is waiting for better infrastructure and one where the right to education is in constant struggle with the need for survival. But what emerges is the heartwarming and life-affirming story of how people and communities, energised from within, are changing lives-of individuals and of the nation. This book is testimony to the essence of education: The heart of the matter is that it is a matter of the heart.'
Anurag derives his understanding of India's realities from spending almost half the year, every year, in some of India's most remote regions, with some of its most vulnerable communities. Bringing his expertise and experience to bear, he was key to drafting India's National Education Policy 2020.
Anurag is the Chief Executive Officer of the Azim Premji Foundation, one of the world's biggest philanthropic institutions. He was the founding Vice Chancellor of the Azim Premji University. In an earlier life, he has led a successful global business in precision engineering.
He is a regular columnist for Mint, Hindustan Times and other publications.
All of what I have written is from my experiences in my role at the Foundation. Even those pieces that seem distant from these experiences, seem so because they deviate from the field of education. But that is a mere matter of form. My work in education has become much more than that for me. It is my connection to the harsh and uplifting reality of this world. It is my immersion into this country of mine. It is a bond of solidarity with countless, each a privilege. So, it is actually the reverse: when I write about education, often though not always, I try to write about something else.
The pieces are of uneven quality. But that doesn't bother me much, because one must improve over time. Galling are those pieces, where a sentiment or insight, said or unsaid, by the many that I meet in the course of the twenty-five-odd weeks that I travel in the field every year, has been shallowed or diluted by my poor writing craft.
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