India Review August 007

end-july : espians first 100 networkers discuss the world launch of citizen travel guides to learning - free download centre here

Esther Dyson tells a startled Charlie Rose that India is the world leader in valuable education models and much else in service markets that are not robotic in entrepreneurial design ... and that in tomorrows human service markets USA is sinking like a titanic

Prahalad's search for 10 times better value models:

see eg http://www.omidyar.net/group/eco nomics/news/33/?searchterm=praha lad%20pyramid

case: Aravind Eye Care Hospitals India (click pic to see video)

world class eyecare for those needing operations due to cataracts

typical surgeon performs 150 surgeries a week - six times number common among Western specialists

http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/403200708161020.htm One month after retiring from 5 year term as President of India, scientist Adbul Kalam launches Lead India 2020 : youth must tear up educational curricula wherever they teach non-sustainability -help us facebook with this world leading takeover of a nation's knowhow by its youth http://www.facebook.com/group.ph p?gid=5527802410

Correspondence with ted on vision of Sunita Gandhi http://cmseducation.org http://gemsedu.org

SUNITA GANDHI My vision for the future? ... I want to see GEMS schools of children take over the world! I want to share the opportunity to change education as we know it.

GEMS is a complete paradigm shift in education as it is based on a new Premise of competition with oneself and excellence in all things. The Four Building Blocks of Education, a vision I gave to CMS http://cmseducation.org and on which it now moulds its work with 31000 children each year, aim to truly be the most open keys of any education in the 21st century:

*Universal Values (spirit “to be” and flow), *Global Understanding (heart “to love”), *Excellence in All Things *and Service to Humanity -“the will to do service”

This has tremendous potential for removing illiteracy from India as well. I have my village based project through an NGO I started as a project in 1992 when visiting India from my World Bank days and feeling guilty I was earning so much and could do more for the underprivileged children. Today, I am running an experiment for these children under the GEMS banner which has the potential to change and rock the world of education for these children too. My article on GEMS has been accepted for inclusion most likely in Educational Leadership, the most widely circulating educational magazine out of ASCD in your neck of the woods. This article on A New Way to Assess with GEMS Dynamic Assessments will be coming out most likely in their December/January issue.

I feel education is an unexplored field. We are not getting the results we seek from it. Its goals are at odds with the needs of the individual and society today. We need to go back to the drawing board and re-examine the ethics on which education is based and the ends to which it is geared.

Education can alone create a better future and harness human potential for its highest personal and social good. To create a new future, we must chart out a new path. If we do not change direction, we are likely to end up where we are headed. If 20th century was the most brutal and murderous in human history as per Kofi Annan just prior to the Millennium Summit, then the future where we are headed is not a comfortable place. Where indeed do we begin a process of change. What will trigger the changes?

Why? I believe a new education is where the process of change will be Most fundamentally effective. It is also the quickest way to bring about permanent change. GEMS is not about maths or science education or even a new paradigm in assessment, first and foremost, it is a new way to think about education. If we do not ask the right questions, we are not going to get the right answers. What should education in the 21st century look like? What kind of education will bring out human potential to produce its highest and best and its noble nature? Etc…

In 1988, I organised a Roundtable on Education in the 21st Century at CMS. It explored many of these questions. GEMS is an outcome of years of iterative questioning. You may understand where I am coming from if I confess that I was getting very restless at the World Bank after I noticed how education has become like an old medication with an expired date which has at best an uncertain outcome. With so many new children being enrolled in this day into this old paradigm in education is making sure the past is intact with all its problems – Apartheid in South Africa is no different than economics based apartheid in the US, for example, as children study in different neighbourhood schools because of economics. Where will the process of change begin?

Better Value for All of The Pyramid My parents school, by educating 31000 children across a city, shows that quality education for all – we are in the league table of India’s top 10 schools on a cost/resources base that some of those other big city schools use to educate hundreds.

Iterations of the GEMS journey at the State of the World Forum where I organised a forum on Education in the 21st Century and my guests included the then Prime Minister of Namibia who was also some time prior the Chairman of the UN Conventions. His name is Hage G. Geingob, and he is inspiring. I don’t fully know why but it seems the State of the World Forum is now in a lull but at one time, they were doing impressive conferences and bringing in the likes of Steven Covey, Deepak Chopra, Jane Goodall besides world leaders, mostly though retired. They did bring Sonia Gandhi and it was very confusing as I was getting invitations meant for her and vice-versa that year! Incidentally, I am also a board member of World Citizen.org and Troy Davis, its founder knows me well. His father Gary Davis you may of heard of with his world passport, etc. They are in themselves quite amazing people.

More on South hemisphere interactions : project work in Morocco which got me the World Bank President’s award for Most Outstanding Contribution to Development given to 10 Bank staff members, and a thesis written about my educational ideas in 1998 by Cornell Menking, University of New Mexico, etc