My experience

Unlike Divesh I didn't get selected for Abhigyan the first time I tried getting in, that was almost my first day in BITS '06. 2 years down the line I finally got a chance. Nothing could be a more motivating reason to wake up early morn other than helping someone learn something that could change their lives.

My student's name is Raju.He doesn't know when he was born and neither does he have much of a clue of his last name.He know's hydraulics even though he is just learning the language fundamentals. That's coz he is a crane operator in Birla.The reason he joined Abhigyaan is something that we all take for granted: education. He dropped out of school in the 4th standard, was never serious when given the chance to study till now.Why the sudden transition? He is skilled enough to do the job he is good at yet he was denied visa/work permit to go abroad since his communication skills in English weren't as good as the rest.Now we need to ensure that he gets compatible enough to clear a 10th class private exam.I'm not aware if Abhigyaan has helped anyone get an exam done, but I told him I would help with the exam, there are a few agents around who do this but is there anyone in Abhigyaan who could help with this?

Teaching students@ Abhigyaan is quite different from teaching students at a private tuition which I had been doing since past several years before coming to BITS.When marks are the only thing at stake students do anything to get marks.So disinterested are most in their studies that they go to school only for the Sports, friends and those free little things you get on chips.It's more a problem of under-education than illiteracy. The Finnish school system is reported to be the best. Finland 1 and Finland 2 will give you an insight. We may not be able to adopt it but we can surely adapt to it.We just need a few good people to get working.Times of India's Teach India Campaign has been a wonderful Initiative on paper though I have no clue of what kind of results they have obtained. We are also trying to use this MAD platform to help us in doing the same. Whatever the platform we may use, if each one of us can make a constructive difference to one person/year , it would make a lot of difference.

We sure do have a legendary tag line "Knowledge is Power Supreme" but What use is Power if we don't use it properly.

Ciao :)