Vinay Jain — Founder, Witty Group of Institutions, Mumbai

Vinay Jain is promoter of the Witty Group of Institutions (estb.2000) comprising four schools in Mumbai and two in Rajasthan with an aggregate enrolment of 5,200 students. Jain is also CEO and managing director of VJTF Eduservices Pvt. Ltd, an education consultancy, and a motivational speaker and trainer.

NEP 2020 overview. NEP is a progressive document which if implemented swiftly and effectively will transform India into a global knowledge powerhouse. Though belatedly, it has finally given prime importance to early childhood care and education for developing children’s foundational numeracy and literacy skills. ECCE is the cornerstone of all future learning.

Transition of K-12 schools to online/ blended learning during the current Covid-19 crisis. For schools, the pandemic is nothing short of an apocalypse. Schools are temporarily using the online medium to maintain learning continuity. However, online has its own drawbacks such as poor Internet connectivity, lack of digital devices, inadequately trained teachers, screen time effect on health of children, and poor learning outcomes. Online education is a good temporary alternative, that’s all.

Increasing government interference in private schools’ fees and online education delivery. Knee jerk reactions and circulars by government have caused severe damage to private education. Some parents have taken undue advantage and are raising the slogan ‘No school no fees’. Government should take into consideration that private schools are entirely funded by students’ fees. Even while schools are not physically open, salaries of teachers and support staff have to be paid.

Witty Kids’ major initiatives. Some of our recent initiatives include remodeling the curriculum to suit the digital medium; investing 36 man hours per week to train teachers to manage online classes; monitoring online teaching-learning sessions to enable continuous improvement and conducting online parent orientation programmes.

Top 3 proposals for re-inventing India’s K-12 education system.

• Grant loans to education institutions under the priority sector lending programme with tenure extending to 40 years and interest rates on a par with housing loans. This will result in reduction of school fees.
• Scrap B.Ed as a compulsory qualification for teaching in schools. Allow highly-qualified professionals such as doctors, engineers, lawyers to also teach.
• Redesign curriculums to remove information-based concepts which encourage rote learning.

Read the full story here on 25 leaders reinventing K-12 education