Reinstate child’s innate strength for holistic development: SAI International Chairperson

Dr Silpi Sahoo, Chairperson, SAI International Education Group interacted with Shiskha.com on collaborative learning, evolving education industry, the importance of STEM learning and more.

With the changing dynamics of the academic system in India, Dr Silpi Sahoo, Chairperson, SAI International Education Group, Orissa had a conversation with Shiskha.com on evolving education industry, steps to bridge the education gap, holistic learning and more. Affiliated with the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), SAI International Education Group aims at enabling positive teaching and learning environment. Let us look at some of the important excerpts of the interview below:

Q: What are the steps the school is taking in line with NEP 2020

A: SAI International is already running in the NEP 2020 outlined strategy since its inception in 2008. The School focuses on giving equal impetus to sports and academics and to co-curricular activities. As outlined by NEP 2020 Vocational or Skilled based learning is vital for the proper grooming of children. We have around 24 clubs such as Photography Club, TV production Club (SAI TV), Radio Production Club, Fine Arts club, Dramatics Club, Music/Dance clubs just to name a few and subjects like Banking and Insurance, Beauty and Wellness, Information Technology, Financial Literacy, Front Office Operations and many more. Other than this the school strives for Academic Happiness and wishes to achieve a goal of spreading happiness in each child.

Q: What are the guidelines to unite educators and communities to support the holistic development of children?

To support holistic development in children (cognitive, social, emotional, physical cultural and spiritual) and build a strong nation, the educators need to focus on the early years to institute and reinstate a child’s innate strength.

• Effective Assessment Report: For unhindered growth the schools and the educators community design an effective assessment report that captures a  child’s strength and the interconnections between learning areas and experiences.
• Partnering with Parents: A strong parent partnership practice increases family involvement in early childhood years leading to positive outcomes in learning and development.
• Instilling the 21^st Century Skills:  The critical thinking and problem-solving skills will enhance the thinking capacity in children and help them in devising innovative ideas and think out of the box.
• Design a Balanced Pedagogy: Giving equal importance to sports, academics and co-curricular activity will help in the well-rounded development of children
• Practices related to inclusion: No child should be deprived of learning hence practices pertaining to inclusion should be included in the curriculum.

Q: What steps schools can take to improve the skills among students? What is your school doing in this regard?

A: Apart from academics, Sports and Co-curricular activities holding events play a major role in improving the skills in children. SAI International hosts mega events which are completely student-led, flagship events like SAIMUN, SAITED, UNWIND. These events instil leadership, innovation, critical thinking, entrepreneurship, collaboration, teamwork, critical thinking, communication, creativity, and empathy in children.

Q: How to develop effective communication, high-order learning ability, and inquisitiveness among Children?

A: Using the skills of critical thinking, metacognition, comprehension, application, evaluation, synthesis and inference in the curriculum, will enhance the higher order learning ability, communication and inquisitiveness among children.

Multi-disciplinary projects help children to explore various aspects in learning a topic in different perspectives developing inquisitiveness to know more and more on a subject. Hands-on experience activities in various labs like science, entrepreneurship labs, sports lab enhance the learning process. Robotics and Atal Tinkering labs promote science and technology innovation at school level.

Internship programmes also enhance the communication and higher order learning skills in children.

Other methods could be peer learning, flip classrooms, industrial visits, global immersion programmes, excursions, and trips.

Q: How can schools work towards bridging the academic gap occurred due to the pandemic?

A: The 2 years of the pandemic has brought the education sector to a point where there are huge academic losses in various schools across the globe. Schools should identify the gap and address the gaps through various methods.

• Interdisciplinary Projects: During the pandemic, we designed the curriculum such that more and more interdisciplinary learning takes place through assignment, activities, online events, and projects.
• Project-based Learning:  Once the Schools reopened our focus shifted to the offline mode and to the sports and music integrated learning and project-based learning where children had an immersive experience. They performed
• Provide Study material online/ offline: Schools can provide study materials to
  the students both online and offline to refer to at any point of time.
• Conduct Remedial Classes: The school can conduct remedial classes for the children who need it.
• Emotional Counselling Sessions: We are helping children to come back to their normal selves away from electronic gadgets.
• Personalised Attention:  We have mentors for the children who give special and individualized attention to their mentees and make sure they talk very often to the children and help them come out of their self-dejection and lack of confidence.
• Increased Sports and Music Timing: Children love music dance and sports therefore we have increased the number of hours per week based on their Classes and age.
• Being Flexible: we have made our classes very flexible as children are not so used to sitting for longer period hence, we made class timing flexible.
• Holding large format events: We have flagship events that are completely student-driven. We have started planning the events with the children which are the most sought-after activities that children learn.

Q: In 2021, the overall pass percentage of Odisha 10^th exams was 97.89. However, this year, it is 90.55. What could be the reason behind this decrease? What could be the steps to improve the pass percentage in 2023 board exams?

A: Last year's results of the State Board as compared to this year have shown a decline of almost 7%, The result was prepared on the basis of an assessment of class IX performance. This year, the way students have scored is commendable as they took offline exams by attending online school. Once the students are regular to the offline school, it will reflect in the result for 2023.

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