PI Club and the Circus - Akshay Chowdhry

ISBN:9781637145678

Format: Paperback

₹ 149.00

This book is a fast-paced mystery story for young readers with several twists and turns.

"During the lockdown in the past year, I took the opportunity of having more time at home to do something I have wanted to do. I wrote a book! It’s a children’s fiction book titled ‘PI Club and the Circus’. The book is a mystery story, similar to Enid Blyton’s Famous Five stories. It is for children in the 7-11 year age group." #piclubandthecircus #piclubstories" - Akshay Chowdhry

Nikhil and his family have just moved to Dehradun, a small valley town in India. There, Nikhil meets a group of children around his own age – Ishaan, Neha, Shreya and Arjun.   There’s a circus in town, but events take a strange turn when the children visit the circus. They get tangled up in a series of robberies and begin to suspect that someone from the circus is responsible.  The children from the Private Investigators (PI) Club investigate and are determined to solve their first case.  Will they be able to uncover the perpetrators?

Akshay Chowdhry was born in Calcutta, educated at Gitanjali School (Hyderabad) and Hyderabad Public School, Shri Ram College of Commerce (New Delhi), ICFAI Business School (Hyderabad), and London Business School. He pursued a career in finance before joining his family business of manufacturing cooking oils. When he isn’t writing or working, he enjoys playing golf, watching web series, cricket matches, and spending time with his family and friends. Akshay Chowdhry is Group Vice President at Gemini Edibles and Fats India Private Limited.

The book is on sale at The English Book Depot in Dehradun, order online www.ebdbooks.com

Challenging times for us – Private Schools Too

Vasudha Neel Mani

COVID19 has put everything to a stand still. The future is still in dark, we don’t know when we ll able to go to schools physically. I wont say that schools are shut because the classes are being conducted in every home of teachers around the world. India is no exception as all the teachers of all the private schools as well are multi tasking as they are balancing their household chores and educating young minds. In small towns in India,  where wifi and internet is a challenge, they have been trying their best to impart the best education. And we also need to introspect and reflect, who is their support system at this time and that is none other than their management, Principals who are working day in and day out to make things flawless. The management of private schools are working just like any other important segments of society but instead of getting any appreciation, they have been facing the flack for being unreasonable to expect the fees from the parents. Any system is like a chain and if any link is broken, whole system collapses.

Do we know that they are facing challenging and tough times and going through a lot of emotional, social, financial and mental stress. There is a lot of misconception that private schools have lot of funds in surplus and that’s not true. They don’t have any buried treasure. Lets understand that, when any institution is made, there are lot of resources needed, excessive amount of loans are borrowed from banks for the lands and resources are handed over to the society. Without empathizing with their difficulties,  everyone assumes that running schools is a money minting system and since they have lot of funds, they should give a fee rebate.

During these tough times, all private schools are working whole heartedly to give the best online education to their students. Teachers motivate their students, inspire them and keep their emotional connect on. No institution or organization can run without income. Private schools in the country, generate employment for millions of people. If these schools are not there, it can become a challenge for many more who are employed.

Lets talk some facts:

o   Have the banks waived off their loans? The moratorium has its own conditions where they are charging extra interest on all the loans. Mostly all the private schools have taken loans, over draft facility and all the transport have finance on annual contract. 

o   When the schools are fulfilling all their duties, preparing results, taking classes, paying off their loans later , then why so much uproar about waiving off school fee?

o   Even if schools are unable to attend the school due to this tragedy, the school is and will be conducting extra classes during morning/evening hours, Sunday, public holidays, Diwali vacations and many more with full responsibilities. To do all this, all the teachers will work extra to complete the syllabus by working overtime, then why reduction in fees? Will the parents pay extra to school then?

o   The parents in Govt/ Semi Govt sooner or later will get their salaries . Parents in private jobs will be paid too. Then why the fee waiver needed? Parents running their own businesses or professionals, will they give their goods or services for fee? Then why demands in waiving off the  school fees?

o   Teaching, non teaching staff , support staff working in school, should everyone not be paid for this time ? If the parents do not pay the fees, how is school expected to pay them. Lets think rationally and fair. Do not take fees from parents and pay teachers on time. These two directives are contradictory, impossible and ridiculous. Private schools do not have buried treasure.

o   Just as matter of waiving fees from private schools is being raised, will all higher education institution follow the same too?

o   Is the state govt or central govt who is being very harsh on private schools, ready to give 3 month grant or interest free loan to private schools? Why they have given 70 percent salaries to the govt employees?

All rules and regulations should be made keeping in mind all the partners and stake holders. Therefore it is of paramount importance that we think rationally and not do anything that causes a disruption in school system.

Will privatisation of education solve all our problems?

Ask anyone, literally anyone, on what they think of the Indian education system, and each one will have an opinion (no seriously, try it). The system is failing, teachers are to blame, politicians should focus more on education, the infrastructure is lacking and what not. Fix all this, and you’ll solve for education. 

That’s a general perception. 

 

But is it really that simple?

 

In the last 10 years, government schools, which promise free education for all children till the age of 14, have seen the migration of 13 million students to fee-charging private schools. 40% of all children today, a study in a private school. 

In the midst of several initiatives such as Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, where India invests ~4.41 lakh crore rupees to improve the access and quality of education in government schools in India, will complete privatisation of education solve all our problems? 

While private schools are aggregately (ranging from a top class elite private school to affordable private schools) doing better than government schools, are they really doing good? Do private schools really offer a better value for money and a ‘good’ education, as perceived by millions of parents? Do we even know what ‘good’ schooling means? 

In this episode of EI Dialogues, we talked to Amitav Virmani, Founder CEO of The Education Alliance, who asks the same questions. Amitav is an Economics major from St. Stephens College, Delhi. After getting his MBA degree from the University of North Carolina, he returned to India. After four years of working as the Country Director of ARK, he founded The Educational Alliance (TEA). Amitav currently also sits on the board of the Central Square Foundation and is a 2010 Aspen Fellow and a 2015 Ashoka Fellow.

Amitav talks to us about what is really meant by good quality education, how his organisation is creating effective partnerships by connecting governments with non-profits to leverage the strengths of both, and how they are creating a layer of accountability within the system for getting children into schools, improve teacher attendance, and more importantly, make sure that the students are learning. 

Is the need of the hour to shift the debate from government vs private to that of good vs bad quality education? 

Find out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzQSzJLBCrw

As always, we would love to hear what you think about this, and ways to make EI Dialogues better through this feedback form: https://forms.gle/vtfquBD1ZQrjqa8w9  

Please do write to us on what you thought of the episode, and share it in your networks!

Best,

Ritesh Agarwal