Astad Parakh
| People
Astad Parakh, the 82 years old octogenarian is the silent force behind the not-for-profit “BCPT English E.Teach” initiative (estb.2009) that distributes free custom-made animated audio-visual interactive content adhering to the State prescribed syllabus to teach English to 6.4 lakh children studying in Maharashtra’s vernacular-medium municipal and government schools. The ace marketing consultant and founder of Danco Corporation (estb.1995) who has been working in the field of education for over 20 years, plunged full time into social service after handing over the business to his son in 2001. In 2008, with a vision to better the educational outcomes of school-going children from low income households, Parakh associated with the Bombay Community Public Trust (estb.1991) founded by housing finance doyen, H.T. Parakh and eminent journalist, R.M. Lala. Until March 2019, the English E.Teach content has been disseminated to 10,900 schools across Maharashtra. Newspeg: The English E.Teach content is played in classrooms using low-cost technology like TV and DVD players or projectors or computers sanctioned by the government in many municipal and zilla parishad, urban and rural schools. With the interactive content supplementing the class teacher’s knowledge of English during school hours itself, the model is now getting recognition from the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) as well as the state’s education department. In June 2018, taking into account the positive impact of the model, the MCGM, authorised its 800 vernacular schools to use the BCPT English E.Teach content. The State government’s District Institute for Education and Continuous Professional Development (DIECPD), nodal agency for teacher training, also passed similar instructions for the 90,000 primary schools in 36 districts (408 talukas) across the state. Since 2018, BCPT English E.Teach content has also been included in the state government’s out-of-classroom education-based mobile application, ‘Diksha’ which allows students, teachers as well as parents to access it as a resource material. An internal survey (2017) by the BCPT English E.Teach team reported 68.18 percent students having better oral English comprehension of the language in municipal schools that used the English E. Teach model as compared to the 45.56 percent students in municipal schools, that didn’t. History: Parakh believes school-going children living in a vernacular-speaking environment where English is not spoken or heard either at home or amongst their friends are at a great disadvantage when made to attend English-medium schools. However, aware of the growing importance of English as a global language and the helplessness of children with no access to good English education, Parakh aimed to introduce easy English teaching classes for primary school students. After several rounds of interaction with the Oxford publishing house, School net, British Council and others, Parakh realized the need to create tailor-made content suited to the Indian social milieu while solving the children’s twin needs of learning the language as well as the prescribed curriculum. BCPT entrusted Tata Interactive Systems (TIS) to create a page-by-page well-conceptualised, high quality teaching material of the Maharashtra state government prescribed syllabus. Spread across Maharashtra, the initiative uses members of local not-for-profits to disseminate and act as…
