Shayama Chona, Founder-president, Tamana Society

Shayama Chona, Founder-president of Tamana Society & former principal of DPS, RK Puram (1992-2009)

Where would you place education on your national list of priorities?
Top of the list.

How best to upgrade government schools?
Central government schools — KVs and JNVs are doing well. But standards vary from state to state. If official dropout percentages and Pratham reports are any indication, India’s children deserve better.

Thinker/philosopher you admire the most.
Thinker: Jawaharlal Nehru; philosopher: Aristotle.

Your leadership style.
I lead by example.

Your favourite book on leadership.
The Leader in Me by Stephen R. Covey.

For or against the RTE Act mandating 25 percent reservation for underprivileged children in private schools?
For.

Should education outlay be doubled by cutting defence expenditure?
Yes, definitely.

How satisfied are you with the growth and development of the DPS schools movement with which you have been associated for 38 years?
Very — amazing growth and development. But teaching-learning standards are not uniform. Some non-DPS society-owned schools need to come up to the standards of society-owned schools. There’s no doubt however, that the DPS brand attracts best staff and students.

How adequate are government and public efforts to educate India’s estimated 40 million challenged children?
Highly inadequate. How can we call ourselves a civilised society when there’s little care for 10 percent of our population which is disabled? Failure to implement RTE Act provisions in schools has resulted in total neglect of special needs children. The ground reality is far from what is projected.

Pessimistic or optimistic about Indian education as a whole?
Very pessimistic. We need 200,000 new schools immediately. There is a huge requirement of teachers, but the B.Ed course content is obsolete. The recent CBSE reforms introduced by Union HRD minister Kapil Sibal are praiseworthy but their implementation is still a far cry.