The Multiplier Effect

Read and Lead

To read and discuss chapters 8 and 9 of Every Last Girl by Safeena Husain

Key Takeaways

• The "Multiplier Effect": Educating girls yields massive returns, including a 10% wage increase per year of schooling, a 3% national GDP boost for every 10% increase in female secondary completion, and a 4.2M reduction in child deaths.

• The Core Conflict: The author challenges justifying girls' education for its external benefits, arguing it reinforces patriarchy by valuing a girl for her service to others rather than her intrinsic worth.

• Educate Girls' Scaled Impact: The organisations AI-driven model accelerated its reach from 345k girls in its first decade to enrolling 4M girls in a single year, mobilising 1.5M previously "invisible" girls.

• The Ultimate Rationale: The book's central message is captured by a young learner's quote: "I learned to write so I can write my fate," asserting education as a fundamental right for personal agency.

Topics

Recap: AI-Powered Precision Targeting

• The previous chapter detailed Educate Girls' shift from an inefficient "saturation model" to an AI-powered precision model.

• Inefficient Saturation Model:

  • Slow: 6 years per district.

  • Wasted resources on villages with no out-of-school girls.

• AI-Powered Precision Model:

  • Uses a machine learning model trained on 10 years of data from 1M households.

  • Predicts high-need villages, increasing girls found per village from 18 to 42.

  • Enables targeting the 5% of villages containing 40% of all out-of-school girls.

  • Success amplified by aligning with government policies (RTE, Beti Bachao).

Chapter 8: The Multiplier Effect

• Girls' education is framed as the "highest return investment" in the developing world.

• Case Study: Andu

  • An educated woman who escaped an abusive marriage and became an Upa Sarpanch (local leader) and Educate Girls coordinator.

  • In her 11-village ward, no girls have been out of school for years.

  • Her leadership led to community-wide improvements:

    • Economic: Women learned animal husbandry, increasing milk production tenfold and enabling small businesses (papad, paper bags).

    • Health: Institutional births became the norm, saving infant lives.

• Quantified Returns on Investment

  • Economic:

    • 10% wage increase per additional year of schooling.

    • 10% increase in female secondary completion → 3% national GDP growth.

    • 100% upper secondary completion by 2030 → 10% national GDP uplift, adding $15T–$30T to the global economy.

  • Health:

    • Responsible for >50% reduction in under-five child mortality (4.2M lives saved).

    • Universal primary education → 15% reduction in child mortality.

    • Universal secondary education → 49% reduction in child mortality.

  • Social & Political:

    • Increases women's political participation (voters, candidates).

    • Villages with female leadership invest more in women's priorities (water, education).

    • Educated women are more likely to report domestic violence and stand up to discrimination.

  • Environmental:

    • Reduces disaster deaths by 60% if 70% of young women complete lower secondary school.

    • 12 years of education + family planning → 70 gigaton reduction in GHG emissions by 2050.

• The Core Conflict: Education for Whom?

  • The author challenges the "multiplier effect" argument as patriarchal.

  • Rationale: It justifies education based on a girl's service to others, not her intrinsic worth.

  • Conclusion: If a girl's value isn't recognized as her own, society hasn't truly progressed.

Chapter 9: The Meaning of an Education

• The chapter opens with a profound quote from a young learner: "I learned to write so I can write my fate."

• Educate Girls' Growth & Impact

  • The author reflects on the organization's 15th Foundation Day, addressing a 2,000-person team.

  • Scale: Grew from a small team to 22,000 staff across 4 states, reaching 30,000 villages.

  • Acceleration: The AI-driven model enabled a massive increase in impact.

    • First Decade: 345,000 girls secured education.

    • Single Year (2024): 4,000,000 girls supported.

    • Total: 1.5M previously "invisible" girls mobilized.

• Road Trip to Reconnect

  • The author planned a road trip through Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh.

  • Purpose: To reconnect with field teams and girls, verifying the human impact behind the statistics.

    
    

    FATHOM AI-generated notes

School Education Is Simply Wrecked - Soham Anand

I have completed 43 years in the school teaching profession and worked in several capacities. I can with absolute conviction say that there has been a steep decline in the school's academic standards. Honestly speaking, school education is simply wrecked, and numerous contributing factors to it.

The most significant variables are the education program (curriculum) and the instructors. Rather than being the most honourable and responsible profession, schooling professional is today thought of as despairingly and looked down upon.

The curriculum is unimaginative and doesn't encourage analysis, thinking, conceptualization, rationalization etc. It's all rote and memorizing of information. Today, most teachers are moulded and conditioned to a fixed routine without anything new or fresh. It's like just passing of data day after day, week after week, year after year, like a parroted parrot.

Educators are not concerned with integration and intelligence or the enquiry of truth or wisdom; they are more anxious and concerned about religion and creed, caste and temples, temples, churches and mosques. No teacher helps children to introspect, to look within. No teacher helps children to discover themselves. Today, educators have turned into government officials bound to shallow and ideological instructions that have nothing to do with education.

Assuming that if we need to create a new world order, each educator must be both a pupil and a master. We first need to educate ourselves before we go out to educate others. If another social and educational order has to be laid out, the individual who instructs simply to acquire compensation can clearly have no place as a teacher. Bringing in cash as an instructor amounts to exploitation for one's own benefit. Tuition and coaching classes are a pointer in that direction. For a genuine teacher, worry of his own comes last.

Parents and guardians are no less to be blamed and faulted. They say they love their children but are unwilling to change the current social circumstances and existing education order. They are not willing to bring about the necessary transformation of this horrendously violent society.

Assume, if parents genuinely love their children, they would attempt to draw a new social and educational order. Most parents and guardians couldn't care less; they neither have the time to manage or address earnest educational issues. They, however, possess enough energy to time to bring in enough cash for amusement, entertainment, clubs, parties and so on. They have no opportunity to spend just thirty minutes with their kids. They would joyfully give a couple of hundred rupees as compensation for not being able to sit with them and, of course, to suppress the resulting guilt. This is a reality that a more significant part of our guardians would rather not face, for confronting it would mean surrendering their entertainment and clubs. Most guardians have diminished themselves to a lucrative earning machine, embracing power and pleasure. They would rather not face the intricacies of bringing up the kids, little understanding that they would be leaving behind a dangerous and horrendous world profoundly risky for their children.

The world we have created today is shallow, counterfeit and horribly revolting. Still, we embellish it with flowers and draperies, trusting that the artificiality will be concealed, but for how long ......

- Soham Anand, Dehra Dun, India. Originally posted on Facebook for friends and teachers.

Responsibility and Cooperation - Prerna Rathod

Responsibility and cooperation are the inner core values of a person. Responsibility is

the quality of being responsible for a person, thing, relation, etc. In other words, it is the state or fact of having a duty to deal with something or of having control over someone.

On the other hand, cooperation means the action or process of working together to the same end. If a person is responsible, then he will definitely be cooperative. He will definitely understand the value of the other person, as well as their relation.

A person is responsible if he/she cares for the other creature. But a person might be cooperative, genuinely or just for the sake of their welfare. When a person is responsible and cooperative, he develops other qualities also like respecting others work and views, being calm and patient, trusting others, developing leadership qualities, building team spirit and working with the team to achieve a common goal.

A very good example where both responsibility and cooperation come together is our present situation. Today to save ourselves from Covid-19 the government has made certain rules and regulations to save the citizens of our country from Covid-19. Now, it is our responsibility to follow these rules and also see that others also follow these rules. If we all follow the rules sincerely and cooperate with the government then we will be able to defeat Corona Virus and this depicts our cooperation with the government and society and we will become responsible citizens of our country. But if we don’t follow the guidelines then, we will be responsible for our suffering. So stay home, stay safe and follow the guidelines issued.

Prerna Rathod

The Fabindia School

prd@fabindiaschools.in

Covid 19: A Teacher's Perspective - Ajay Vijayvargi

 After going through various layouts in the package of 20 lac crores to deal with the extraordinary situation by the pandemic in India by the government, where most affected sectors of society –labourers, farmers, industries, infrastructure banking and many more are covered, it is clear that the Indian government is trying to benefit everyone. This move is welcome and was much needed to fight. As per the surveys, the amount of the package is about 10% of the GDP of the country thereby making some compromises even in the defence sector (reduction in budget outlay) for next financial year. A lot many relaxations in all sectors like less deduction of EPF from salaries, a moratorium in EMI`s. Everything is fine, it's the government's responsibility, full marks for it as under the present situation whatever best was possible is being done.

However, the question nobody asked and neither answered, is nothing is thought over the working of private schools big or small as due to sudden lockdown from mid-March when the session was going to end and fees were not collected completely, the schools somehow managed to pay the salaries for the month of March but schools started facing a severe crisis – financial crunch. The reason is simple students not coming to school, parents finding it difficult to pay the fees due to delay in the salaries, uncertainty in the job and future liabilities etc and are asking for a waiver of school fees for one quarter i.e from April to June.

The government has not given a clear verdict over this, which affected lacs of private school teachers unpaid, how will they run their family expenditures and pay fees of their ward and a lot more. The government has paid attention to the needs of the present hour but nobody thought about investing in the future, as `School Fees are to be considered as a future investment and not expenditure`.

The only insight required is a provision in the financial package for private schools as soft loans for a year or so that when situation normalises and fees are recovered by schools these loan amounts would be repaid, this financial assistance to school will give liquidity to schools to pay salaries to the teachers regularly during this difficult times so that teachers also can run their families and meet unforeseen expenses like sickness etc in their families.

The teaching profession is most unrated as the teachers are underpaid but they are shaping the future generation and an important part of the society too.

Ajay Vijayvargi, The Fabindia School

Honesty and Respect: Urmila Rathore

The yearly examinations were going on and children had come to take their exams after preparations and were very curious to give. On one unusual day(as it turned out later), after the morning assembly, it was announced by the Principal Ma'am that today's examination would be discharged as soon as early. Lockdown was announced by the government in view of the increasing transition of COVID-19.

While the children were taking their exam in the examination hall, I got the information that the remaining examinations will be given by the students from their home, which was surprising to me as to how this would be possible?

After that, Principal ma'am called an assembly again and the students were told that the papers of the remaining three exams shall be given from home and that they should check the answer book after completion. Whatever marks they get, shall be sent to their respective subject teachers.

In this way, the students were given papers and were instructed by the Principal Ma'am that they should give them with honesty and trust, and not cheat(rather with themselves) in any way.

After this, a staff meeting was called by Ma'am and told that we have to trust our students and this is the right time to know the student-teacher relationship. It was also said that the marks updated by the students will be compared with that of their half-yearly marks to reassure their authenticity and then prepare the results.

Even after reaching home, the same thing was coming in my mind that will the children be able to follow these instructions? Is it appropriate to give papers at home like this? Or will the parents of the children take it in a positive way? And many such other questions.

Two days later, students started sending their marks on WhatsApp. Five to six days later almost all the students took the examinations, checked the answer sheets and sent their marks. As we had decided in the past that their marks will be matched with the marks of the half-yearly examination so we followed the same and in fact, these marks were around their half-yearly scores!

The students did their work with all their dedication, faith and honesty and it was on this basis that their result was prepared. Everyone's report cards were downloaded from Fedena and uploaded to the next class.

This work-ethic was possible because of the integrity of the students, the directions of the Principal ma'am and the trust of the teachers. Thus, it set a unique example of honesty and mutual respect.

This experience has a major lesson in itself. We can only win through difficult situations if the virtues of cooperation and honesty are performed. At the same time, trust and respect for each other take us to infinite heights.

Urmila Rathore

The Fabindia School

Schools Can Change: Manish Sisodia and Anjuli Bhargava

A society cannot progress unless it offers equal opportunities to all and to do that, education provided by the state school system must be on a par with the best on offer privately. Quality education has so far been the privilege of a few in India.

Delhi’s education sector in 2015 – when his party came to power - resembled a giant black hole. Barring the odd exceptions - a few Kendra Vidyalaya and Rajkiya Pratibha Vikas Vidyalaya - the city’s public school system (1029 schools under Delhi government) was broken mainly, and schools were in pathetic shape. Cobwebs in classrooms and crumbling infrastructure were only one part of the story. Demotivated teachers and low morale of students added to the gloom and doom. It was not uncommon to find teachers spending their time knitting, eating peanuts, playing cards or even absent, filling their day with paid home tuitions also as they drew their monthly salary,

Almost as soon as it took charge, AAP set itself the task of filling the hole. It began by fixing broken fans, desks, chairs and classrooms, building toilets, adding blackboards, removing cobwebs and making the space more habitable. School after the school was examined and painstakingly refurbished. Before asking the teachers to perform, the semblance of a school had to be established.

In the second phase, it started to tackle some of the deeper malaise. Government schools have teachers who are high on skill but low on will. In a system that fails to reward merit, how does one ensure performance? Moreover, parents who are often illiterate or barely literate see little value in the education received in the state schools. How does one change that? These were some of the aspects of focus in the next phase of reform.

Deputy chief minister of Delhi Manish Sisodia elaborated on his government’s efforts so far, the results and plans for the future in a detailed conversation with Anjuli Bhargava. 

Tinkerly - Learning By Doing

Tinkerly (Formerly known as SRJNA) is the brainchild of qualified IIT and XLRI graduates who realized the need for practical learning in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) subjects.

Students can prepare right from their first grade to meet any challenges thrown at them in the competitive educational ecosystem. They have developed creative and interactive learning tools and methodologies for the interest of children to enhance their learn and experiment. Tinkerly’s strong R&D team and technology powered operations help us to keep the content fresh and relevant for 21st-century competencies with supreme experience. 

In just 4 years since inception, Tinkerly has become Best STEM learning solution provider in India via providing an end to end solution for STEM labs in 180+ schools benefitting 75,000+ students across 25 cities in 15 states. Tinkerly believes in not just following the traditional education path but to tinker with it employing new technology and methodologies. 

The word ‘tinkerly’ means experimenting and creating improved innovation and make the learning easy with the help of its products like Tinkering Labs (ATL), Innovation Labs, STEM Learning Kits and Let’s Tinker mobile App.