Inspiration
These Educators, Who Accept Plastic as Fees, Share Their Unique Pedagogy With Us
Read our exclusive interview with Parmita Sarma & Mazin Mukhtar, the founders of Akshar Foundation
Parmita Sarma, an ex-TATA institute student, and Mazin Mukhtar, a New Yorker, met in 2013 and soon realised their mutual passion for teaching. Together, they created the most amazing education model to solve multiple problems like illiteracy, strayed-off teens, plastic pollution, and sustainability in the state of Assam, India, and named it AKSHAR FOUNDATION.
ScooNews spoke to the founding duo that is not just concerned about its students in the school but also about their families, poor living conditions, nutrition and now their safety amidst the COVID-19 outbreak.
Excerpts:
1. From where do your students collect/get the recyclable plastic waste? Do you have any guidelines? Also, what kinds of transformations have you noticed in your students and the environment after this model came into practice?
Students are required to bring clean, dry plastic waste from their homes (biscuit packets, etc.). Parents segregate the plastic waste for them and send it to school with their kids on the school bus. We recommend about 25 pieces each week, but if they are consuming less then it is no problem as long as they participate to some degree. This has the effect of parents developing a habit of segregating plastic waste and eliminating the habit of burning plastic.
It is usually after school that the teenagers are employed in collecting plastic from homes and businesses near the school. The impact is small, but we believe that if every school adopts similar policies, the plastic menace can be eliminated from India.
2. We’re impressed by your pedagogy style wherein older students teach the younger lot. Please talk about it.
Akshar Foundation’s most innovative feature Meta-Teaching is designed to address the problem of teacher shortage and lack of parental support. Meta-Teaching is the training and employment of at-risk teens as teachers/coaches for younger students, under the supervision of a senior teacher. We teach students how to teach, and they become better learners in the process. Students are paid for teaching in tokens, which they exchange for food, clothes, sports equipment, hygiene products and school supplies. The more they learn, the more they earn, as they teach increasingly complex topics. This novel approach has yielded many benefits: Firstly, we have eliminated the practice of child labour among our students. Many students who formerly worked in a local stone quarry have opted to earn money by teaching instead. Second, employing teenagers as teachers has enabled us to arrange small classes, comparable to elite schools. This way, children with no parental assistance receive valuable, daily individual mentoring from seniors. And lastly, students acting as mentors become better learners by teaching and gain qualities like confidence, work experience, leadership skills, and a strong work ethic.
3. How do you manage to keep afloat Akshar Foundation economically, what sort of help do you receive?
Akshar Foundation is a charitable trust, funded by Motivation for Excellence, a Mumbai-based philanthropic organization, as well as by CSR funds from Oil India Limited.
4. How, according to you, the govt. or local people can help in your mission?
We are striving to implement the Akshar Education Model in government schools. We feel the local crowd has the potential to put pressure on their government officials to adopt this model and transform schools into centres for sustainable development. With the Akshar model, we can eliminate child labour and dropouts, and empower teens to solve the toughest social issues, while they receive a high-quality education and placement into a high-skill career. This is how India can educate 1 billion+ citizens and become the predominant world power.
5. How much has COVID-19 pandemic affected the education and life of children enrolled with Akshar Foundation?
COVID-19 has caused education to stall completely for our students and plunged many families into food insecurity. A majority of them live in bamboo houses where they can’t even keep the books dry, let alone tablets or laptops for e-learning. We are continuing the learning via Whatsapp to some degree, but it is entirely insufficient. Akshar teachers are currently distributing food to students and their families, and we have delivered more than 60 tons of rice and 15 tons of potatoes so far. We are seeking to reopen the school as an essential Crisis Management Center because, for the students living in poverty, this school provides not only education, but also food, water, shelter from abuse, and healthcare.
6. What is the most satisfying aspect of your work? Would you like to share any close-to-your-heart story with us?
We have several students who used to labour in stone quarries or as woodcutters before they even turned 12. When they started in 2016, they didn’t know the alphabets, they were violent bullies who were used to smoking, drinking, etc. Four years later, they have reached Cambridge, started studying for their Standard X examinations from NIOS, etc. More importantly, they now take excellent care of the young children and stray animals around them, they recycle and plant trees, they are leaders in their communities, and they are exceedingly decent, standing tall with self-respect. Today, they’ve become model students and model citizens. Seeing them fills us with overwhelming pride.
7. Lastly, what drove you and Parmita to start this organisation? If not Akshar, what do you think you both would be doing?
We both saw that the world was on the road to disaster and that education was the only way to change this course. We found our calling, and we can’t really imagine ourselves doing anything else now. But we don’t do it out of kindness or altruism; rather it is out of necessity if we want to have a peaceful and prosperous world for ourselves.
ScooNews applauds them and is very grateful for people like Parmita and Mazin who dedicate their time to causes that should not be subjected to an oversight. A true TEACHER WARRIOR knows where they are needed and would swim oceans for their beloved students.
https://www.aksharfoundation.org/team