TRYSTS AND TURNS: Involving the community in education

ELIZABETH Mehta is an Englishwoman married to my good friend Sunil Mehta, the scion of the family which ran Paragon Textiles, known for Elpar Fabrics. They met in England, where Sunil had been sent by his father for studies.

Elizabeth, or ‘Liz’ as she is called by her husband and his friends, is an educationist by profession. During the years she spent in India with Sunil, she came to the conclusion that “the larger purpose of education was to create a population of healthy, creative, collaborative problem-solvers who care about humanity with respect for its diverse cultures”. She harboured a dream, which is presently taking flight.

Muktangan tries its utmost to choose and train teachers from the local community.

When the textile industry in Mumbai ground to a halt as a result of a prolonged strike called by labour leader Datta Samant, almost all mill owners shut shop and either sold their land on which the mills were built or utilised the space for other businesses.

Sunil always exhibited a ‘social’ conscience. I had met him at the board meetings of a well-known NGO in our city, the Happy Home and School for the Blind, where 200 indigent blind students from kindergarten to Class X were housed, fed and taught to read and write using Braille. Sunil was a big contributor to the funds required to run this residential school built on land leased by the government.

Liz’s passion for education was a perfect match for Sunil’s interest in lifting the unfortunate ones from poverty and want. He handed over a few rooms in his office to Liz to plan and draw up a blueprint for improving the quality of life of slum-dwellers living in the vicinity of his former mill — through the medium of education. Sunil contributed to Liz’s venture by taking over the ‘business’ part of the newly conceived joint venture. The financing of the venture was left to him.

In March 2003, Muktangan, as the venture was christened, started its first pre-school and recruited seven women from the

educationally underserved communities as teachers. These women were not highly qualified nor did they possess the teaching experience required, but they had been motivated by Liz and her dedicated group of teachers to make a difference. They developed a passion for learning that gave wings to the entire initiative. Liz titled the new model ‘Education for the community, by the community’. The team, which now included these seven newly enlisted teachers under training, lobbied for a municipal school to be set up and run by Muktangan with its unique pedagogy, based on the belief that it was possible to create a joyful learning environment for students and teachers in educationally underserved communities.

The first school was taken over from the municipality in the public-private partnership mode with the support of the community and the municipal commissioner. The spectacular success of this school, defined by the enthusiasm of the parents and their wards, led the Mumbai municipality to ask Muktangan to take over six more municipal schools in the vicinity. The entire project was predicated on the belief that ordinary men and women, empowered with the right beliefs and skills, can drive extraordinary outcomes for children in their aspiring communities.

Liz told me that the key component of the Muktangan model is the ‘Integrated School and Teacher Education Programme’. Learning, she says, is a process which occurs through experience and reflection. She proceeded to assert that children were not passive receivers of information but also active contributors in the classroom.

The children who joined the KG class in Muktangan’s first school in 2003 passed out 11 years later. No municipal school in the city had secured the level of success in the SSC (Staff Selection Commission) examination that Muktangan delivered. This level has been maintained every year since then.

A boy who passed out from the SSC batch of 2023-24 stated that in a Muktangan-run school, the children were not taught what to learn but how to learn.

Muktangan tries its utmost to choose and train its teachers from the local community. Sneha Sawant is a proud Muktangan-developed teacher. In 2006, a decade after she had passed Class XII exams in the Marathi medium, she was employed as a pantry-staff member by Liz’s team. Sneha was fascinated by the fact that all teachers were from the community to which she belonged. She decided to become a teacher herself. Muktangan gave her that opportunity, which she grabbed with both hands. She is a teacher-educator now. In 2019, she attended a Global Forum on Early Care and Education in Macau, the former Portuguese colony now under China.

In its quest to foster ongoing learning environments in low-cost mainstream schools, Muktangan has recently forged strategic partnerships with the Zila Parishad, Nanded, (a district of Maharashtra bordering Telangana) to revamp pre-school education in 500 anganwadis in rural areas. Muktangan has also signed an MoU with the Dehu Road Cantonment Board, near Pune, to transform 10 government schools catering mainly to the children of migrant workers settled in the area.

I have been associated with Muktangan almost from its inception. Sunil asked me to serve on its board and I immediately accepted. It was here that I met Anil Swarup of the UP cadre of the IAS after he superannuated. Anil had been Secretary to the Education Department, Government of India. As a practitioner of true service to the people, he was always ready to learn from men and women who were doing selfless service for the needy and the dispossessed.

Anil’s desire to learn from others brought him to Muktangan’s doorstep. This is what he had to say after he found out what Liz and Sunil were really doing: “Muktangan, where children flourish, is a free aangan. What a pleasure it was to meet this ‘young’ couple that is transforming how education and teaching can be delivered in a municipal school. They are demonstrating how learning can be fun. Truly inspiring.”

My article touches on something that has always interested me — a positive contribution to progress by citizens like you and me. The work they do has to be done without expectation of any reward. Only then does it deserve a mention.