7th Anniversary Essay IV

Fifth revolution leaders”All happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” What Tolstoy wrote about families in Anna Karenina, is even truer of institutions. Be it Homi Bhabha at the Atomic Energy Commission, Verghese Kurien at NDDB, Vikram Sarabhai at IIM-Ahmedabad, Mohammed Yunus at Bangladesh‚s Grameen Bank or for that matter Narayana Murthy at Infosys. These happy organisations resemble each other in the quality leadership they were fortunate to have. The vast majority of education institutions in India, the celebratory high tide of the IT-BPO revolution notwithstanding, are all unhappy in their own way.Reflex-action alphabetic responses (like IIT, IIM, AIIMS) are often used to justify education quality in India. Apart from being flawed ‚ arguably the real USP of these institutions is their entrance examination and not so much what happens thereafter ‚ this evidence of quality applies to less than 0.5 percent of the population. Viewed through any lens, be it quantity (less than one in three children complete primary school, and less than one in six complete high school); quality (reports show close to half of grade VII school children cannot read and write satisfactorily; India‚s per capita patents or research papers are less than 1/100th of Japan or South Korea) or ethics (an archaic entrenched culture of pseudo-learning involving memori-sation, marks, and complete disregard of individual potential or our collective heritage) ‚ education as a domain is troubled. And we need great change; some say a revolution, to make it a happier place.And education has seen change before. In fact, one could trace four important revolutions in education in independent India. One, the creation of model institutions for higher education notably in technology, management, and medicine. Two, with the state preoccupied with a handful of higher education citadels, it was left to the efforts of NGOs like Eklavya, and more recently Pratham, to bring quality, equity, and accountability to grassroots education. Three, the computer-based vocational training heralded by NIIT and its ilk that went on to provide large quantities of ‚Ëœraw material‚ for the ITES boom. Four, the rise of ‚Ëœpublic‚ private schools serving the poor as a coping response to poor quality state schooling.Leaders reflect the revolutions they lead. Each of the above education revolutions was born out of an environmental constraint and produced, and in turn was shaped by a prototypical leadership. The need for a vision brought forth the Nehru-Mahalanobis Fabian socialist big-plan leadership; the need for equity produced Anil Sadgopal‚s academic social idealist leadership; the need for enterprise stimulated the Nadar-Pawar type of technocratic leadership.A fifth revolution is needed in education; one that bridges divides. India stands at a historic crossroads, deeply divided in opportunity (rich vs. poor), torn in aspirations (material vs. higher needs), and ideology (capitalist vs. socialist). Real education is the highest common factor. It could unleash an entrepreneurial yet socially conscious type of leadership within the domain of education ‚ especially at the pre-university level. An awakeful leadership that is skilled and willing to engage with the pressing issues of quantity, quality, and ethics. A movement that brings forth an E. Sreedharan (of Delhi Metro fame) kind of organising force to populate the million-plus schools of India, the ten thousand-plus colleges, and education enterprises, advisories, and regulatory and advisory bodies that are required to revitalise this domain.What would this leader do differently? the global experience of education leadership and my own experience with education institutions in India, suggests two possibilities. One, such a leader would focus on learning, not administration. Great schools, colleges, and institutions are built around ‚Ëœinstructional leaders‚ who lead by example, are deeply involved in the quality of learning and teaching, rather than in managing the 3Ps ‚ paper, process, and patrons. Two, they focus on making heroes, and not becoming icons themselves. This is often the hardest to do as clever (often academic) people tend to be obsessed with their own work. Shared leadership and succession plans are some of the most critical missing ingredients of education institutions today.Beneath the bureaucratic “commission, committee, council” veneer of education, there are dozens of fifth revolution leaders emerging, somewhat unnoticed. Be it Kiran Sethi of Riverside, Ahmedabad or Mrs. Sood of John Martyn School in Dehradun who run inspired schools; or Usha and Shahji whose Jodo Gyan is innovating mathematics education in west Delhi; small school owner Prasad Rao who wants to make Karimnagar, A.P. a knowledge hub; or IIM alumni like Sridhar Rajgopal who runs an education assessment consultancy and Anand Swaminathan who leads Wipro‚s education support programme. Awakeful leaders-in-making walking the bridging tight rope between rich-poor, material-spiritual, self-society divides. All caught up with learning, involved with building others. All from happy families you will hear more about.(Ashish Rajpal is the co-founder and managing director of iDiscoveri Education)