An Educator with a Purpose to Re-define the Contours of Education
“When your work touches your heart, brings the poetic angelic qualities, man is bestowed with, to the fore, then your work is not a profession that brings you paycheck. Your work is what you are put on the earth to do. Your work is spiritual in calling.” Anonymous
I had the honour of knowing one such sterling woman. By virtue of her unflinching faith and resolve, she fought the barriers of class segregation and revolutionalised inclusive education.
I was thrilled and nervous when I travelled the picturesque town of Mhow in Madhya Pradesh to meet Ms. Keran Bahadur, Principal of Colonel’s Academy (the K-12 school is run by her Not-for-Profit “Colonel’s Educational and Cultural Society”) Mhow and a recipient of National Award in Teaching; I could feel heart in my mouth as I approached her residence. The gate opened to a driveway, lined with blooming flowers and a playground beyond.
She offered me a seat in the garden overlooking her home. Wrapped elegantly in pink cashmere looking pristine, simple and elegant she started sharing her story, her experiences, and her concerns with all humility. She took me through the alleys of the years bygone, “I believe I was always a teacher. Being an army officer’s wife, I travelled the length and breadth of the country and almost everywhere, the substandard and exclusionary practices in our education system distressed me.”
She began and her eyes resounded her concern, “When we moved to Mhow in 1995, there were just two CBSE schools, that were exclusively reserved for government employees’ children. Children of the civilians had to either travel far to Indore or had to go to schools which misguided them claiming to follow the ‘CBSE pattern’. That was the moment when I vowed to make quality education accessible to every deserving child in the town, without any class or caste considerations.”
In a rented 3 room building with a handful of students, Ms. Keran Bahadur single-handedly laid the foundation of her own school, ‘Colonel’s Academy’, which became the first Private CBSE school of Mhow. Her sincere and honest efforts paid and gradually the team grew in number and the number of students also started swelling. Today, 20 years forward, Colonel’s Academy, nestled in nature’s lap, stands tall, inspiring and personifying inclusive, holistic and value-based education.
She is an ardent advocate of ‘Education for All’ and constantly strives hard to not let the education system become the perpetrator of social inequities. “There’s no dearth of talent and potential in the underprivileged children. What they lack is a stimulating home environment which is congenial to their progress in studies.” Colonel’s Academy is trying its best to provide such a welcoming and responsive space to these children so that they can flourish without hinderence. “Education to them is free. We make them available extra hours in studies in subjects where these children need special attention and we track their development and provide the necessary intervention whenever required. To negate girls dropouts especially, we give particular attention to counsel the parents and dispel their stereotypical beliefs.”
The strategy she follows is integrative and accommodating, not assimilating. “Hundreds of underprivileged children have passed and are studying here and not a single time you can differentiate the students on the basis of their family or social background.” Their exemplary success stories are a matter of pride for her and reaffirm our belief ‘God created all men and women equal. All what is required is an able hand to beautifully carve them.’ Many of them have made into premier educational institutes like IITs and IIMs, London School of Economics and well-known US universities; from chartered accountants, doctors, dentists, engineers, corporate leaders to fashion designers, the alumnus of this institute have it all.
Her visionary self made Ms. Bahadur the harbinger in the region to introduce smart class and robotics in her school. Apart from academics, she makes persistent efforts to instill in her students the civic responsibility. “For the last 15 years, my students are involved in the Anti-Tobacco Campaign in the town and adjoining areas.” She is even the pioneer of bringing the ‘Handful of Rice’ program to the Indore region, which has now been picked up by the students of IIM Indore and implemented in many schools in the region.
Ms. Keran Bahadur is particularly concerned about the commercialisation of education. So when asked what message she would want to send out to Good News Broadcasting Communitys’ readers she said, “Education is the noblest profession and cause. We need to ensure ‘Each one, Teach one’ and keep in mind that by providing literacy, it is not just the lives of the students which we are shaping but also shaping the future of our country. Be sincere with it.”
Never before had I been so overwhelmed with the conviction and serenity of an educator who wielded the exceptional power that calmness, humility, knowledge and wisdom could bestow upon a person. An educator who has begun her every morning since the last 25 years with a solitary mission- to bring the best out of every child who has come to her .
If you also know of such a change-creator , please share their story. You can write to us at editor@gnbc.in
