After being an educator over a span of three-and-a-half decades and having taught in some of the most reputed schools in the country and abroad, all one would want is to have a comfortable retired life. But Jyoti Thyagarajan chose to fight the education system after she gave up her formal teaching career.
"Epiphany," she says is what prompted her to shift from teaching in high-end schools to venturing into government and low-budget private schools. "Over the span of 30 years, I would have probably made a difference in the lives of 600 children. But I wanted to scale that up and go beyond educating individual kids," says a restless Ms. Thyagarajan, who founded Meghshala Trust a year ago.
She wants to capitalise on the power of teaching in order to step up the overall learning outcomes. She asserts that the biggest problem in the educational system is that teachers today teach the way they have learnt. Empowering a teacher with an imaginative curriculum is what she believes can go a long way in changing the dynamics of the classroom. Their experiment in 15 schools in Gubbi, in Tumakuru district, and Bengaluru would testify to the same. Her young team picks out a chapter from a textbook and uses audio and visual content, such as portions of films and ad films, and designs a module that teachers can use.
After teachers implemented this for one semester in the last academic year, the young volunteers observed a steady improvement in the students’ performance in all subjects. This is the model that she aims to replicate in the coming years and plans to reach out to 3,000 students by the end of the current academic year.
She hopes that their teaching aid would act as catalyst and make classrooms interactive, engage the children and help re-charge the teaching potential of teachers. “If a child likes racing, then the teacher should teach the math problem around racing. Physics concepts can be taught by using the basics of football, and it works like a dream,” she says.
What does she do?
An educator, she has taught in prestigious schools in India and abroad
Founded Meghshala Trust in 2014
Designed teaching aids for teachers that would make lessons more lively and interactive.
They are currently working in 15 schools in Bengaluru and Gubbi, in Tumakuru, and their intervention is helping 50 teachers and 500 students.
Their pilot project revealed that there was a steep increase in learning outcomes after their intervention.
By the end of this academic year they hope to cover 180 schools and reach out to 450 teachers and 3000 students.
Expectations from government
Look at learning outcomes seriously
Evaluate them periodically
Give prominence to teacher education
Package and market government schools in an attractive manner
Expectation from Bengalureans
Share skills, teach in government schools
Contribute to a common fund for development of school
