I am very happy to participate in the Annual Partnership for action in Education (PACE) Principals Meet organized by Hindustan Times schools programme. I realize it is very important for me to meet nearly 900 principals representing 1500 schools having three lakh students who will in turn form part of 12 lakh population. What topic can I share with you? When the students enter into the society after their 10+2, what type of human being are you shaping and providing to the nation. This aspect I would like to discuss with you. I have selected the topic "Nation Building with Moral Leadership: - Mission for the Principals"

Role of a Teacher

I have interacted with more than 200,000 school children and thousands of teachers across the length and breadth of the country. Wherever I went, be it Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Jammu and Kashmir or any other part of India, the voice of the youth is unique and strong in articulating their vision and dream and they are willing to work for it. Everyone dreams of living in a prosperous India, a happy India, a peaceful India and a safe India. The combinations of prosperity, happiness and peace to a nation always have to come together. When all three of them converge, then India will be a truly Developed Nation. There are more than 300 million children in India. When I address this gathering of Principals, I realize that I am interacting with a small cross section of the teaching and management community who lays the foundation for the future of India. I am sure that you can ignite the minds of other teachers in addition to those of students by becoming a burning candle lighting another candle. Children work in the school for about 25000 hours during the 12 years of primary and secondary education. Teachers of excellence in teaching alone can with their example become role model. I will be discussing the capacities to be created in the children by the school.

What can I do for you?

Every one of us has gone through the various phases of education from childhood to profession. A scene appears in front of me. A child, a teenager, an adult and a leader. How does each one react to a particular situation? The situation is human need. The child asks, "What can you do for me"? The teenager says, "I want to do it alone". The young person proclaims, "let us do it together". The leader offers, "What can I do for you". So, the principals have got a tremendous responsibility to transform a child into a leader - the transformation of 'what can you do for me' to 'what can I do for you'. That will demand a principal to be a visionary with an inspiring capability. Also the principal has to ensure that teachers impart learning to the children in such a way as to bring out the best in them and for this, he has to be a good teacher himself. I am sure, the best of creativity among the students will emerge by integrated influence of principals, teachers, and parents on students.

Marvels of Universe

Friends, we should note that human mind is a unique gift. You can enter into Marvels of Universe only if you have curiosity and thinking. I suggest, thinking should become your capital asset, no matter whatever ups and downs you come across in your life. Thinking is progress. Non thinking is stagnation to the individual, organization and the country. Thinking leads to action. Knowledge without action is useless and irrelevant. Knowledge with action brings prosperity. As a Principal, you have to cultivate the young minds to explore every aspect of human life. Look at the sky. We are not alone. The whole universe is friendly to us and conspires only to give the best to those who dream. Like Subramaniam Chandrasekhar discovered the black hole through a quest, why most of the stars shine and few die. Today, using Chandrasekar limit we can calculate how long the sun will shine. Like, Sir CV Raman looked at the sea and the sky, and questioned why the sea should be blue? This led to the birth of Raman Effect, he found the blue of the sea was due to the molecular scattering of light and was not a case of reflection of the sky in water as most people imagined. Like, Albert Einstein, armed with the complexity of the universe, asked the question how the universe was born. The famous equation E=mc2 arrived, which can be used for the generation of electricity using nuclear materials and also lead to nuclear weapons. In India during 1960's one important event took place, Prof. Vikram sarabhai gave a vision for the nation on the space programme. He said, India should build her own rocket system, build communication and remote sensing satellites, integrate and launch from Indian space launch centers and put them into the geosynchronous orbit and sun synchronous orbit. Today India can build any type of rocket systems and satellite and launch in a specified orbit.

Millions of people walk in this universe. But during last millennium one noble soul walked and walked in the Indian soil giving application of ahimsa dharma leading to Indian independence. My dear friends, can you make the students to dream to become a noble minded persons like Mahatma Gandhi or Sir CV Raman or Einstein, or Subramaniam Chandrasekhar or Vikram sarabhai. Look at the marvels of your universe. You create great thinkers among the students and they become creators.

Put the students, decades ahead

As young students, we had the opportunity at St. Joseph's College witnessing a scene, a unique, divine looking personality walking through the college campus every morning teaching Mathematics BSc (Honours) and MA (Mathematics) students. Young students looked at him with awe and respect, a personality symbolizing our own culture. When he walked, knowledge radiated all around. The great personality was, Prof.T.Totadri Iyengar, the great teacher. At that time, 'Calculus Srinivasan' was my mathematics teacher. Calculus Srinivasan used to talk about Prof. Totadri Iyengar with deep respect. During those days, he and Prof. Totadri Iyengar had an understanding to have an integrated class by Prof. Totadri Iyengar for first year B.Sc. (Hons) and first year B.Sc. (Physics). I had the opportunity to attend his classes, particularly on the subjects of modern algebra, statistics and also once I heard him teaching complex variables. When we were in the BSc first year, Calculus Srinivasan used to select top ten students to the Mathematics Club of St. Joseph's to where Prof. Totadri Iyengar used to give lecture series. One day, in 1952, I still remember, he gave a one hour lecture on ancient mathematicians and astronomers of India and introduced three great mathematician and astronomers. For nearly one hour he spoke. The lecture is still ringing in my ears. I was introduced to the pride of the nation: pioneers in astronomy and mathematics (4th to 20th century) Aryabhata, Bhaskara and Ramanujam who gave to the world, the zero, computed the orbit period of the earth around the sun and discovered many stunning concepts in number theory. These incidents and knowledge became the foundation for my education, learning with hope and value system. My teachers of primary, secondary and college education had put me a few decades ahead. This was indeed the vision. I am confident there may be many parallels in this gathering, let us emulate them. How can the students be shaped as nation builders and schools become laboratories for such type of mission?

I had an interesting experience of meeting Vice chancellors at Hyderabad and suggesting certain questions for discussion. A professor of Texas A&M University Dr. Robert Slater, an expert in Education and Human resource development, further took up the question from the media, analyzed and sent me an email. Later we met, discussed and evolved the capacities for nation building. This trait of analysis is note worthy. Let it spread among the teaching community.

Capacities for nation building

The most important mission for the nation for which you can contribute creation of capacities for nation building. In the education environment - What kind of human beings do we want to make of ourselves? What capacities do we want to give our children? If we want to give them certain capacities, we must ask capacity for what? We want to give our children the capacity for contributing to economic development and nation building. What kind of nation does India want to build? India transforming into a developed nation by 2020, is the vision of the nation. There is a road map, how to achieve this? There are five areas for simultaneous development: Agriculture and Food processing, Education and healthcare, Information and Communication Technology, Infrastructure development - including River network and self reliance in critical technologies.

For achieving the above mission, the capacities required in schools and student are: The capacity for research or inquiry, the capacity for Creativity and Innovation, particularly the creative transfer of knowledge, the capacity to use high technology, the capacity for Entrepreneurial Leadership and the capacity for Moral Leadership.

a. Research and enquiry

The 20th century was for the generation of knowledge. The 21st century will be about the management of all the knowledge and information we have generated and give value to it. We must give our children, the skills with which they find a way through the sea of knowledge that we have created. Today, we have the ability, through technology, to really and truly teach ourselves and to become the life-long learners that any sustained economic and political development requires.

b. Creativity and innovation

We can best teach ourselves by teaching others. The management of knowledge in 21st century is beyond the capacity of individuals. The amount of information we must make sense of is overwhelming and has exceeded the capacity of individuals. The management of knowledge therefore must move out of the realm of the individual and into the realm of the society. We must learn how to manage knowledge collectively. In other words we must not only teach ourselves, but teach others.

c. Capacity to use of high technology

Every student in our schools should graduate to know how to use the latest technologies for aiding their learning process. School should equip themselves with the tools like hardware, software, laboratory equipments, internet facilities and provide an environment for the students to enhance their learning ability.

d. Entrepreneurial leadership

The Entrepreneurial leadership has three parts to it. First, problem finding and problem solving in the context of development. What do I most strongly feel is my need to know and learning this, how I can help others to satisfy their needs to know. Entrepreneurship starts with understanding our needs and realizing that as human beings we all have similar needs. It begins with wanting to help others as we help ourselves. In second part, the willingness to take risk entrepreneurship requires doing things differently, being bold in our thinking and this is always risky. We must teach our children how to take calculated risks for the sake of larger gain. The third part is the disposition to do things right.

e. Moral leadership

Moral leadership involves two things. First it requires the ability to have compelling and powerful dreams or visions of human betterment. A state of things in which human beings could be better off in the future than they are now. Secondly, where entrepreneurial leadership requires people to acquire the habit of doing things right, moral leadership requires a disposition to do the right thing and influence others also to do the right thing.

Perfect learner

If all the five attributes are inculcated in a student, by his principals, by his teacher, by his parents, he or she will have in him the burning desire to learn through out his life - will also said as an example for others. A perfect learner will not only learned from the class room, but the environment as well. I firmly believe that the Principals mission is to generate Perfect learners.

School design for a Perfect Learner

For perfect learner - what will be the type of schools that we have to design? Learning through enquiry or research using the latest technologies like the internet to acquire the information. Creativity should flourish in the schools by students learning to teach themselves and by teaching the other students. Ethics of giving to others to be cultivated by asking the question how my learning can benefit others? How can I contribute to my own development and at the same time to the development of others and the nation? For imbibing Moral development, values such as team work, fair play, cooperation, doing things right and doing the right thing, hard work and commitment to a cause larger than oneself are to be emphasized, while keeping in mind our cultural fabric and our own value systems.

Conclusion

What kind of leadership will be required to develop the schools we need for the 21st century? Educators today must exercise moral leadership if our schools and educational institutions are to meet the challenge of the 21st century. They must develop a new vision for schools and schooling, a vision of an educational environment in which students can grow more autonomous through very act and process of learning. We cannot lecture students into autonomy. Autonomy must be developed and acquired through a process of action, in the case of schools, the art of learning.

Such an education to the students through you Principals will provide the nation, committed leaders who will transform India into a prosperous, peaceful, secure and happy nation.

I wish you all success in your mission.

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