Improved learning system by Tata

Ratan Tata, chairman of Tata Trusts, a philanthropic organisation, on Wednesday launched the Connected Learning Initiative (CLIx), a programme to create new learning experiences and educational opportunities for secondary school students in India, in grades 8 through 11.

“This is a very significant movement that we are launching today — CLIx,” he said. “There are several occasions that I have had feelings within me and I am sure many of you have similar experiences where we see young boys and girls selling magazines and books at signals. You look into their eyes and you see great intelligence and brightness but they don’t have a chance to be educated and so they are unemployable. This is our wealth and it has to be marshalled to the extent that it can,” he added.

Mr Tata talked of India’s strength of a large and young population, an entrepreneurial population, which does not have the chance and the ability to be educated. “Many of these young kids would love to have the chance of having education, to be able to speak English, to be able to have their place in the sun,” he said.

Mr Tata said the vision of the Trust was to help the young express themselves and also to get employed and to this end, the CLIx progamme would make a difference to their lives. The programme includes the knowledge and resources that have been gained by Tata Trust partners such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Tata Institute of Social Sciences, and the support of four state governments and the ministry of human resources development. The four governments represented were Chhattisgarh, Mizoram, Telegana and Rajasthan. Courses will be in Hindi and Telugu to begin with and will reach an estimated 1,65,000 students by 2018-19, and will offer curriculum in english, science, mathematics, and professional values. An additional major focus will be professional development for roughly 4,400 teachers in the four states.