Faridabad : An -Noor Women’s Welfare Organization held a group discussion on the theme “Quality Education – A Dream or Reality” at Heritage Global School, Faridabad. Several educationists, scholars and stakeholders, mainly from New Delhi, participated. The event also gave an opportunity for the visitors to have a firsthand information and personal interface with the quality ambiance of the venue providing school, which is emerging as topnotch educational facility in a highly backward region in Haryana, like Mewat.
After introduction of the theme and panelists of the group discussion, Abdul Rashid Agwan, president of Universal Knowledge Trust, New Delhi, made his opening remarks on quality education. He stated that quality education is the key to success for any society or community. He went on to say that consistent improvement in the quality and synergy of all the five players of education are equally important, which comprise students, teachers, parents, institutions and policymakers. He emphasized that in a world fraught with information revolution and accelerated global changes in every sphere of life, it is important for teachers and institutions to always look for the significance of keeping themselves abreast of developments in the field of education and pursuing the policy of learning, de-learning and re-learning. Agwan was of the opinion that there are four components of education namely promotion of literacy, information, knowledge and wisdom and that only the first two of them find place in the present day educational system, turning educational institutions into the factories of intelligent machines rather than centers producing human beings.
Dr Haleema Sadia, Principal India International School, Sharjah expressed her deep concern on quality education. She said that quality education for all still seems to be a distant dream for ordinary citizens of India. She also mentioned a few challenges to achieve this goal, i.e. wide disparities in the educational status of different regions, high pupil-teacher ratio, dearth of qualified and trained teachers and lack of motivation and zeal and the like. She remarked that India ranked on the 73rd position in the PISA rankings in the last time it participated in the international assessment, which is alarming for all its citizens to think and revamp its educational system which badly needs a relevant curriculum and skilled teachers who can motivate students to learn it. Dr Sadia further said that, in short, an overdue emphasis on quality is essential in addition to focus on access and inclusion.
Riyaz Malik from ETV Urdu quoted his own real life experiences and encouraged the parents to allow their children for experimenting creativity. He remarked that instead of making them bookworm let them learn by trial and error method.
Dr. Deepak, the administrator of Heritage Global School, highlighted the vision and mission of Heritage Global School saying that children just need a platform to blossom which HGS provides them. Heritage Global School has state-of-art infrastructure and advanced education system that makes every child to become ambitious, responsible and aware about the future. HGS is a fully residential school spread over 10 acres of developed land. The school gives international exposure to the children. Heritage has highly qualified and dedicated faculty of international level for various academics, sports, co-curricular activities. The school provides world-class international level facilities or modern amenities such as: swimming pool, facilities for 20 indoor-outdoor games, yoga, fully air-conditioned buildings and buses, peaceful and healthy environment with lush green lawns near the beautiful landscape of Aravali hills, healthy organic and hygienic food is served to our students from school farms, art gallery, halls for vocal, Hindustani and western music and well equipped gymnasium for students, a world class level hostel facilities are available for holistic development with personal attention. The school focuses on overall development, character building, inculcating Indian-value system and building self confidence in each individual. Heritage is a technology-based school with Wi-Fi enriched environment, e-library with various books, laptops, smart classes, language labs, and also with various educational softwares. Learning by doing is the basic philosophy of the school. The school is running up to class VIII and will be affiliated to CBSE, New Delhi. One class will be added every year till 10+2 level.
Shakil from Mingle Mind said that quality education means overall development of every child, which fulfils the real meaning of the word ‘education’ i.e. “develop from within”. The world is changing faster than ever before and the old style of education from colonial system can no longer fulfill requirements of 21st century. Maybe this is the reason why in our country a large number of people are unemployed/ unemployable, students pass out with good marks but without the required skills and that is because we are all very much focused on examination not on learning outcomes. We as educators must work towards bringing the required change in K-12 schools such as: 1. Prison Model to a good educational model: learning has to be interesting, if a child doesn’t learn the way you teach you must teach him the way he learns 2. Rote based learning to meaningful learning: learning as to be meaningful, students should be able to relate and understand the connection between curriculum and real life 3. Examination pressure to feedback and motivation 4. Emphasis on pedagogy (how to teach) instead of how to assess 5. Examination preparation to preparation for life 6. Teacher directed education to child centred education 7. Every child can learn… 13-14% children in every classroom suffer from learning disorder.. It’s very important that every teacher is trained to be able to identify and teach children with learning disabilities (instead of labeling them as slow learners/failures).
Among other honorable dignitaries a few names are A.N. Khatri, chairman Heritage Global School, Sayeed vice-chairman HGS, Deepak Manchanda, Admin Head HGS, Mamdooha Majid, President All India Muslim Women Welfare Organization, Nasima Khan, Principal of The Scholars School, Okhla, M.H. Kamal Asstt. Manager D.M.R.C, Mohd Farooq, Executive Secretary Muslim Education Trust, Ejaz Ghori, of All India Educational Movement, Kaneez Fatma from Al Hira International Islamic School and Noor Fatma.
The parents and staff of Al Hira School were also present to grace the occasion. Students and parents of the school also participated in some enjoyable competitions on the occasions and prizes were given to the winners.