Hi,
In a major surprise of sorts I had the opportuntity to present a project
prooposal for www.parijatacademy.org for calssrooms and teacher salaries - in
the company of Sandeep Pandey the co-founder of ASHA for Education - while a
student at www.berkeley.edu in 1992. He does know a few NGOs in Assam and also
some ASHA volunteers at IIT-G and a tea-entrepreneurial social venture at
Guwahati called Atma Nirbhar.
http://www.ashanet.org/projects/project-view.php?p=751
As he said the initial plan was a bit different - to enable technology transfer
to India - but that was not feasible - focus on education was somewhat his idea
- which found support among only 3 students who together sought support of the
local Indian community in SanFracisco Bay area - by distributing leaflets at
Indian gatherings etc. Also - similar to AssamNet - they started a mailing list
- precursor of Yahoogroups etc - which Indians in USA used to read - hopefully
like AssamNet. They identified 4-5 projects in India and funded them while they
were students.
After completing his PhD at Berkeley he decided to go back to India and for
some time joined IIT Kanpur and later left it to teach at a village school
started by his grandparents. The co-founders had remained in US and supported
from here. Initially the idea of opening so many chapters was not at all there
- but when someone came forward and and that they wanted to start exactly the
same thing at another city - he said okay - but then they said they want to
call it ASHA also -- then he/co-founders said - wait a minute - go ahead but
don't expect anything from us -- thats how each chapter is totally independent
except for common goals.
Right now he is focused on Right to Info and its role in removing corruption
and improving effeciency.
He has now slowly become agreed to the idea that internet can help improve
rural effeciency after seeing http://www.sitapur.nic.in/lokvani/default.htm
where even illiterate villagers can file complaints from remote regions using
private kiosks help and pay Rs10 per complaint to the kiosk owner. At night he
collects all the complaints and types them on this site - while using electric
generator to power his computer etc.
WORLD BANK: I mentioned a study by Harvard and World Bank showing the 25% of
teacher don't to school- and that World Bank was right behind where we were
sitting. He mentioned surprisingly that his sister was one of the persons who
did the study and that we at DC chapter should involve her more. Village
Action Committies seem to have a made just a slight improvement in making sure
teachers teach -atleast in UP etc
He is also an advisor to Indian govt's CABE Central Advisory Board for Education
any comments/
Umesh
Umesh Sharma
Washington D.C.
1-202-215-4328 [Cell]
Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005
http://www.uknow.gse.harvard.edu/index.html (Edu info)
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/ (Management Info)
www.gse.harvard.edu/iep (where the above 2 are used )
http://jaipurschool.bihu.in/
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