Crafting School Transformation step-by-step: An impact story

Two years back, when I first entered Florida English School (FES) in Goripalya, I saw a tall person wearing a white sherwani sitting amidst a huge pile of admission forms, surrounded by many parents around his office; his hands going back and forth on the papers and the call-bell like an automatic machine. The scene was no less than that of a busy market. It did not take me long to understand that I was not going to get an appointment from him. As I started walking towards the stairs hopelessly, I heard a lady calling me, “Excuse me, Sir. Principal sir wants to meet you.”

Wow!! Finally, I did get to meet him. As I entered his office, sir offered me a place to sit and we discussed about our work at Mantra4change & potential to collaborate for a school transformation project over a cup of tea. More than the conversation about the work, what left me spellbound was his explicit willingness to learn: a man running an institution for the last 19 years was still willing to learn. I could see a man with aspirations to provide quality education to the children of his community. As he narrated the tales of endless struggles that he faced during functioning of the institution, I could see a man on a mission with a positive mindset and a fighter’s spirit. Zaka-ullah Shariff, the Principal of FES, is quite an inspiration.

“Give me ideas for the improvement of school and I will implement it.” - This statement from Zaka sir summarizes my discussion with him. Over a period of two years, Mantra4Change and FES have embarked on the journey of improvement and transformation with a vision that FES would be a model school in the locality. It would be an example for other under-resourced, budget schools of the possibilities within the constraints. True to his promise, Zaka sir ensured that he invested time, energy and financial resources to create a great experience for the children studying in the school.

Principal Sir, as he is fondly called by everyone, invested himself and his entire staff at FES in the process of change. He worked tirelessly to understand what additional structures and tools could help elevate the school. He created a second tier of leadership in the school that can ensure sustainability of change efforts. Most importantly, as a leader, he has learnt to delegate and let go. He has started realizing the power of collaboration. Throughout these two years of our partnership, we have introduced six of other partner organizations and many volunteers to FES and Zaka sir has welcomed them all with enthusiasm.

There has been paradigm shift in the way teachers use time after school hours. While they were always seen doing random admin work earlier, now they sit together to plan for their next day lessons and share ideas. Learning circles are facilitated and led by the teachers themselves. Even Zaka sir participates in the learning circles whenever his schedule allows. One day, we saw him explaining to teachers how ‘hook’ (a technique) can be designed to introduce a particular topic.

“How can we create better experiences for our children?”- sir asked one day. We brainstormed and jotted down few ideas on a piece of paper that remained with me. Little did I know that sir kept them in his heart..! After the Diwali holidays, we were up for many surprises: there was an activity center for Pre-primary, a well-designed terrace-cum-auditorium and a beautiful library space for the children. This Diwali indeed lit up the lives of our children.

School Transformation is a long journey. It is not a two year sprint, but a marathon worth attempting. You need a hero to lead the efforts and we were lucky to find one in Zakaullah sir at FES.

- The blog piece has been written by Mr. Santosh More, who works with schools at Mantra4Change. 

Opening a world full of possibilities on Karnataka Rajyotsava

To anyone staying in Karnataka, November 1^st is a day of celebration. It’s Karnataka Rayotsava, i.e. Karnataka Formation Day.

On November 1st 2016, the same fervour could be felt at one of our partner schools. The crisp morning air, the children lined up with almost military precision and the stage all set for the day added to the anticipation and excitement that was palpable in the air. There were a line of speakers and along the sides, there were children dressed in traditional clothes ready to perform the traditional art forms. Amongst all this, there was a considerably large group comprising of parents and children crowded around team Mantra4Change and a couple of other people, clutching forms and pens. This was the day, chosen to provide scholarships to the students who excelled in their studies, but did not have the financial backing to continue their higher secondary schooling.  

Mantra4Change has found a wonderful partner in Vidya Poshak, an organisation that believes that poverty should not be a barrier to education. They provide 5-year scholarship and mentorship support to selected students till completion of their graduation. Their process of choosing students for scholarship has been meticulously designed and is two-fold.

Once the potential candidates were chosen by Mantra4Change based on merit, the process started off with a written test to assess the academic prowess that the children possessed. This was followed by a home visit to ensure that the scholarship went to financially disadvantaged families who were committed to let their children study further.

This scholarship support by Vidya Poshak plays a major role by enabling our children to pursue their studies to create a better future for themselves. Thus, this Karnataka Rayotsava marked the beginning of a partnership that completes the cycle of our quest for providing quality education to children irrespective of their socio-economic background.

This year, 38 of our students across three of our partner schools got the scholarship support. The school had graciously invited students from other partner schools of ours and they set aside a slot just to give away the scholarships amidst the celebrations, inspiring more students to work harder because they had to know that there is always help for those who work sincerely.

As the state celebrated its formation day, the kids celebrated a new world full of interesting possibilities for their future and we were the happy spectators.

- The blog piece has been written by Ms. Amrutha Krishnan, who works as the School Transformation lead at Mantra4Change.

Tryst with an icon

Leadership interaction with Mr. S.D. Shibulal, ex-CEO and Co-founder, Infosys

"S. D. Shibulal better known as Shibulal was the chief executive officer and Managing Director of Infosys."

..boasted the Wikipedia page about the founder of the company whose representatives had flown down to our college for recruiting the best of us into their team. It was the placement season and being a fourth year student, I was trying to feed my tired brain with as much information as possible about the companies that were arriving for recruitment. Infosys was one of the first ones. It was the mother of all companies who caught the fantasy of many a youngster like me. The story of the company that took the IT sector in India by storm and its seven founders was the fairy tale that my generation and the generation before us grew up hearing.

Fast forward three years, life had taken a different trajectory and I chose to be in the education space. During the first few weeks at Mantra4Change, the NGO I work for currently, I discovered the very man I had googled three years ago is the man who is funding the organisation I work with. He however still remained a mysterious figure in the shadows that I could never approach. I mean, how could a twenty something nobody meet a man who led a blue-chip company. 

This was until I saw a Google invite pop up in my mail asking me to either accept or ignore dinner with Mr. S. D. Shibulal & family and Mr. Murali Krishna (ex-CIO, Infosys). "Ignore? Are you joking", I asked out loud to my innocent laptop! I was beyond excited and the several text messages on our team’s Whatsapp group confirmed that, so were my team mates.

Mr. John Prakash and Mr Ansal Scarria, principals of two of our partner schools waited graciously along with us to meet the team. As we trooped our tired yet excited selves into the brightly lit conference room, it was clear that we were at loss for words. I remember Khushboo's voice ringing through the room as she made the initial introduction and a pealing silence that followed. This however lasted for a just a few seconds and then, when Mr. Shibulal had broken the ice himself, Team Mantra (including the school principals) couldn't stop reeling question after question at the man.

The discussion started with challenges in scaling an organisation like Mantra, moving onto policy changes in education and eventually closing off with setting up organisational culture. The man was crisp and to the point, typical characteristics of a CEO.

Here is the wisdom chronicled for the aspirant entrepreneur who happens to read this piece, go ahead the world is at you feet when armed with knowledge and wisdom. Mr. Shibulal spoke about the three hurdles any organisation would face when scaling namely, finding the right talent with commitment to the cause, maintaining consistent quality throughout (Standardise, he said) and finding the right leadership group that can take the organisation forward. To paraphrase Mr. Shibulal,

"For any organisation, especially the one like yours that focus on social impact, three points are of immense significance:

·       Practice your idea. Go to the ground and work damn hard to show the feasibility and impact of your idea.

·      Policy changes can take your idea to every place in the country and make it sustainable. Once you have the proof points, influence the policy makers, get the policy amended.

·       Papers will help you spread your idea. Spread it. Let others use it as a model, for now you have proof and there is policy backing. Nothing stops you now except yourself."

The discussion moved onto various challenges faced by the education sector and the lustre and romance that the field, once held in high regard, has lost. It was rightly pointed out by the team of mentors before us that the respect needs to be brought back to the teaching profession. Once called "the backbone of the country", the typical teacher of this era has to survive a rather thankless society.

As we touched upon the topic of setting up organisational culture, Mr Shibulal was again crisp and short. Here I am, again, quoting the man who brought an entire organisation of thousand odd employees into the company on time every single time.

"The culture has to be penned down and articulated, the leader has to lead by example and finally appreciate the rule advocates and penalise the rule breakers. This induces the network effect which capitalises on the mob mentality of human beings. Nobody would want to be the black sheep and be singled out for being the culture wrecker."

As we took our places at the dinner table, the glutton in me took a break when Mr. Shibulal elaborated on the various endeavours his family had ventured into and how much the family has contributed and continues to contribute to the society at large. On being asked what keeps him going, Mr. Shibulal answered, "When you gain from the society, you need to balance the equation and give as much as you can. When you consume more resources, the bigger is your responsibility to serve the society."

Memorable, indeed that night was with great food, a warm company and wisdom beyond my age and of course the tryst with an icon.

- The blog piece has been written by Ms. Amrutha Krishnan, who works as the School Transformation lead at Mantra4Change.

Sowparnika Foundation partners with MANTRA

"Creating a better world requires teamwork, partnerships, and collaboration, as we need an entire army of companies to work together to build a better world within the next few decades. This means organizations must embrace the benefits of cooperating with one another." - Simon Mainwaring

At MANTRA, we are glad to announce that Sowparnika Foundation, headed by Mr. and Mrs. S.D. Shibulal, has partnered with us. Under this partnership, we will be implementing STEP (School Transformation and Empowerment Project) - our key initiative, in ten low-fee schools in Bangalore, serving children from the under-privileged sections of our society over next two years.

Mr. and Mrs. Shibulal's love for children and the need to give back to society has found fruition in a number of charitable endeavours, like the Advaith Foundation, the Samhita Academy, Vidyadhan etc. Born out of the conviction that quality education is the cornerstone of all developmental progress in society, Sowparnika Foundation was formed to promote philanthropic exercises in the field of education and research. 

STEP is MANTRA's key initiative to improve the quality of education in under-resourced schools. To know more about STEP, please click here.