Speech of Mrs. Anu Aga
Chairperson, Thermax Industries Ltd.
 

Teaching can be compared to selling commodities. No one can claim that they have completed a successful sale unless someone has actually bought, and there are teachers who delude themselves that they have done good teaching irrespective of how much the pupils have learned.

A teacher’s openness and caring increase the student’s learning opportunities. When an teacher is perceived as distant and impersonal – a robot not a friend – learning opportunities suffer.

Teaching carries an awesome responsibility to encourage students to yearn to know, to guide them to acquire knowledge and insist that they continuously ask the question “why do I need to know what I am taught?”  Passive acceptance and learning of facts doled out by another person it not education. Learning means leaving the known for the unknown – an exhilarating but scary venture.

For achieving excellence in education  - what needs to happen?

  Weightage given to development of the whole personality and not just focus on qualities of the intellect. The  body possesses a mind but also has emotions and a spiritual side, which needs to be acknowledged. In India we have a rich heritage of meditation, which has proved its worst – can we teach it to our students?

In Ancient India we had excellence in education through the tradition of the Gurukuls – where a student lived with the Guru till he was an adult and learned about all aspects of life -  devotion to elders, knowledge of scriptures, values, household chores, to some extent agriculture, how to be a warrior and so on. The emphasis was on the overall development of the individual – thus equipping him for life.

There must be fun while learning. Fun while learning. Fun gives relief from routine. It teaches students generosity in an area, which does not cost a penny -  give and receive enjoyment. Fun can be healing because it is difficult to dislike a person with whom you share laughter. Fun can develop a sense of homour without which life would be intolerable.

The teacher’s job is not a separate the gifted from the ordinary, but to find gifts in the ordinary. The worth of a student is far beyond academic brilliance. Eklavya practices this philosophy because it has stated that “every child is unique and has inborn talent and potential”. Your admission procedure bears testimony to the above philosophy.

Most schools take an casier option and have strict entrance exams before they select a student, and later weed out poor performers rather than concentrate on upgrading the skills of the teachers. My son Kurush was very keen to study either at Oxford or Cambridge and got into Oxford. In the two years he was at Oxford, he passed the examinations but did not do well. The principal sent for us and asked us to transfer Kurush to another university, because he wanted each of his students to do brilliantly to maintain the college standard. To convince us that we should remove our son, he proudly told us the Oxford created a lot of pressure on students and they had the highest number of suicides. If I were the