EducationWorld Initiatives

EducationWorld initiatives for human developmentAgainst the backdrop that contemporary India hosts the largest population of adult illiterate citizens of any nation state worldwide and that an estimated 60 million children in the age group six-14 years of age are out of school, in November 1999 EducationWorld ‚ The Human Development Magazine ‚ the first periodical of this genre in India (perhaps globally) ‚ was launched with the mission statement to ” build the pressure of public opinion to make education the No.1 item on the national agenda”. Since then this publication has acquired an estimated 500,000 readers comprising academics, parents and teenage children in every state and territories of the Union of India. As our subtitle indicates, in EducationWorld we define education in the broadest sense of the word ‚ as a human development experience. Therefore in pursuit of the realisation of our mission statement, we have launched several other related initiatives during the past five years. Among them: EducationWorld Books This division was started with the publication in 2002 of the specially adapted Quality Circle Time ‚ A practical book of Circle Time lesson plans, the best-selling whole school behavioural guide written by celebrated British educationist and author Jenny Mosley. Since then almost the entire first edition of this highly appreciated Indian adaptation of Quality Circle Time has been sold. This month as part of our 5th anniversary celebrations, our second title ‚ 51 Great Careers for the 21st Century written by EducationWorld‚s careers correspondent Indra Gidwani is due out shortly. (see pp.31 and 59 of this issue). TCS-EducationWorld Teachers AwardsOn the occasion of Teacher‚s Day (September 5) this year, in collaboration with the Mumbai-based Tata Consultancy Services Ltd ‚ India‚s largest infotech and computer software development company which has endowed a corpus fund for the purpose ‚ these awards were instituted to acknowledge and celebrate India‚s most commended teachers. Following a nation-wide press advertising campaign, nominations are pouring in from around the country. The awards will be presented on January 26 next year. (For further information see the TCS-EducationWorld Teachers Awards ad on p.63).Infosys-EducationWorld Young Achievers AwardsSimilarly we have recently signed a joint venture agreement with the Bangalore-based infotech blue-chip company Infosys Technologies Ltd which has endowed a corpus amount to acknowledge and celebrate young achievers across the country. These awards will be advertised shortly and presented after the commencement of the new academic session next year. EducationWorld-SportzVillage India collaboration agreementTo raise sports and games standards in schools and colleges across the country, we have signed a collaboration agreement to advertise and promote the range of services offered by the Bangalore-based SportzVillage India which provides expertise and standards upgradation advice to education institutions. (see ad on p.99). EducationWorld-Bhupathi Tennis Academy joint venture agreementThe Bhupathi Tennis Academy Pvt Ltd has promoted the Rs.5 crore state-of-the-art Nike-Bhupathi Tennis Village in suburban Bangalore which has nurtured India‚s top tennis stars including Mahesh Bhupathi and Sania Mirza. We have signed an agreement to promote NBTV to education institutions and parents for short-term training programmes for promising tennis players (see ad on p.71) and also to promote its first-of-its-kind Adopt-a-Player Scheme which will be communicated to selected captains of industry privately. EducationWorld-Bangalore School of Music agreementPromoted in 1987, the Bangalore School of Music which has close linkages with the Royal School of Music, Stockholm, Sweden, is moving to new premises. We have undertaken to help BSM to raise part of the the Rs.3 crore to build its new state-of-the-art East-West Music Centre, auditorium and tuition rooms. EducationWorld FoundationThe is charitable trust was constituted in the year 2002. But thus far it has been inactive for want of funds. On November 6, the foundation ‚ which initially will award scholarships for rural students to study in upscale urban schools and will help build rural school libraries ‚ will receive its first cheque for Rs.50,000 from the publisher of EducationWorld. Subscriptions from the public are invited for the foundation. Other ProjectsSeveral other projects and initiatives, notably to publish translations of EW in other Indian languages; to design a audio-visual version of EW; and to publish other country versions of this publication, are on the drawing board and/or under negotiation. Open InvitationEducationWorld is a campaign publication driven by its mission to universalise and contemporising Indian education. All our projects and initiatives are driven by the zeal to attain this superordinate goal because we honestly believe that universal quality education for all is the vital prerequisite of socio-economic development. Quite obviously we can‚t go it alone. Therefore we extend an open invitation to all individuals and corporates to ally with us in any of the above projects and initiatives. Our assurance is that all of them are being implemented transparently and in utmost good faith.