Artlab Madras, a Chennai-based training institute, is all set to launch a new concept in digital media education next month (June). Promoted by Sunny and Sharon Natrajan, the institute offers short-term digital communication and creative arts courses to graduate students of visual communications and fine arts in partnership with the College of Communications, University of Nations, Hawaii. With its first one-year course in digital media and communication in affiliation with the Swiss Institute of the College of Communications, already on offer, the new programmes aim to develop students’ creativity and artistic expression rather than technology skills which are the focus of existing courses in India.

“We have been doing extensive market research since 2002 and have found that though India has skilled professionals in IT related services, we don’t have sufficient trained manpower in the area of digital communication. Our IT professionals lack the ability to integrate creativity into technology; this is why few films and entertainment projects are outsourced to India. If we are to tap the huge opportunities in digital media we need to develop a unique curriculum that is Indian in content and Western in technology,” says Sharon Natarajan, a computer engineering alumna of Pune University, who also runs her own advertising and an outsourcing agency in Chennai.

The first batch of 30 students from all over the country, handpicked after evaluation of their creative skills, will be divided into two batches and will be instructed by three full-time resident faculty from the College of Communications, University of Nations and three full-time faculty from India besides globally renowned visiting faculty.

“Our training methodology is unique in that we concentrate only on one module every month besides equipping every student with a computer,” says Natarajan of her dream venture. Six months of classroom activity will be followed by six months of internship coordinated by Artlab Madras at one of its centres executing outsourced digital projects in Chennai. “Interns will be handling real world projects, interacting with foreign customers and developing skills,” says Natarajan.

Artlab’s hi-tech Rs.2.5 crore designer campus nearing completion on a two-acre plot facing the beach front in Thiruvanmiyur, simulates an artistic multimedia studio and is equipped with state-of-the art infrastructure. ” It’s time India moved away from doing back office jobs for America and Europe and developed an indigenous creative industry. We have a rich cultural heritage and diverse artistic tradition. In Artlab we want to draw out the creativity of our students for application in digital communication,” she says.

With the Indian digital communication industry which has an annual revenue of Rs.2,475 crore expected to grow at the rate of 30 percent over the next three years (according to Andersen Consulting), Artlab’s novel academic venture has the potential to open many new and exciting career options for Indian youth.

Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)

Maths missionary

In the matter of posing mathematical conundrums or teaching multiplication and division of integers, Delhi-based Jose Paul has few equals. Despite his having entered the teacher’s fraternity 40 years ago and having attained the biblical time span of three score and ten, Paul is still packing a hectic schedule of teaching mathematics and running educational workshops into his daily routine. Last month (March), he conducted workshops in Delhi, Jaipur, Nainital, Gorakhpur, Trivandrum, Cochin, and Bombay, adding to his tally of over 2,000 workshops in India and abroad. An alumnus of St. Albert’s College, Cochin and Himachal University, Paul also attended several teacher-training institutes in Europe — Austria, Switzerland, and France — to learn about their systems of education and their pedagogies employed for teaching maths in secondary schools.

A former teacher at St. Luke’s Higher Secondary School, Shimla and St. Xaviers School, Delhi where he rose to the position of director of the educational planning group (EPG), Paul has made the methodology of teaching mathematics at the primary and middle school levels his life’s mission. In 1976, the principal of St. Xavier’s Fr.T.V. Kunumkal, who conceptualised EPG as an independent educational initiative to improve the quality of education in India, inducted Paul into the project as a founder-coordinator. “It took us a while to design the programmes and to get enough schools interested in our teacher-training programme. But within a year, we were booked up for 24 months in advance,” he recalls. Within two years Paul began conducting workshops in pedagogy and the methodologies of teaching maths at some of Delhi’s most well known schools including the Convent of St. Jesus and Mary, Rajmas, Sardar Patel Vidyalaya, and Springdales.

Though Paul’s passion and specialisation is mathematics and innovative ways in which to teach this dreaded subject, EPG which includes his colleague of 17 years, Mrs. Gayatri Murthy, offers teacher training in a wide variety of subjects. These include pre-primary education, leadership training for youth initiatives, general teaching strategies, environmental approach to primary teaching, multiple intelligence and its relevance in the classroom, co-operative learning strategies, value education, parent-child relationships, classroom management and the teaching of mathematics at the primary and middle school levels.

The author of three series of mathematics textbooks — Mental Maths and Mathscope for kindergarten-class V students; Discovering Mathematics, for kindergarten – class VIII students — in his elegantly produced books, Paul’s objective has always been to make mathematics and its fundamental concepts interesting for children. “The language of sums and problems should be simple so every child is encouraged to think mathematically. The key to understanding mathe-matics is problem solving: concepts should be illustrated by way of posing problems and learning should be activity based,” he advises.

In his latest series Discovering Mathematics, Paul makes a spirited attempt to encourage teachers and students to develop curiousity and an urge to explore the complex yet supremely satisfying subject that is contemporary mathematics, and the usefulness and applicability of mathematics in real-life situations.

And the emerging consensus is that he has succeeded.

Meenakshi Venkat (Delhi)

Persistent educator

For Leina Chaturvedi the decision to deliver reading, writing and numeracy skills to Lucknow’s slum children was a natural extension of her years as a teacher at Dehra Dun’s Welham Boys School. And although Chaturvedi quit formal teaching after her marriage, in 1987, she couldn’t envisage a better vocation. “I thought of starting an upscale school, but when I observed under-privileged children whiling away their days or working in menial jobs, it seemed obvious that I could help them and acquire some life skills,” she recalls.

Inevitably persuading the parents of such children who attributed devious designs to Chaturvedi’s intent took some doing. Also because their parents thought the children were better off doing odd jobs and contributing to the family kitty. “Now they don’t complain. Children keep joining the group voluntarily and also bring friends along,” she says. But for that Chaturvedi had to shift school timings to the afternoon to make it easier for children working as domestic help. “I’ve had to resort to a regular supply of sweets and a weekly movie to retain them in my informal home school,” she admits.

Her determination has paid off. The number of her students has risen from three in 2001 to almost 40, in the age group of four-18. Chaturvedi’s ‘school’ has grown in her own home. Classes begin at 3:30 and after 90 minutes of mathematics and Hindi there is half an hour of television as a reward. Most of the teaching is activity and story based with lessons on personal hygiene and health integrated into the self-designed curriculum.

Though some friends have chipped in with financial help, Chtaurvedi has been managing on her own. “All this would not have been possible without my husband’s support,” she admits adding that she has recently hired two teachers to help.

For a while she tried enlisting help from the state government to supplement her efforts. “I wanted proper classrooms for my children. Also to make arrangements for some formal schools to admit them after they learn the basics here. Some of these children are brilliant and could go places if they are given a chance,” she says. But with no help forthcoming and her proposals enmeshed in bureaucratic red tape, she has decided to go it alone.

“The motivation comes from within. Today when I see the happy faces of my children, I know I have been able to make a difference, no matter how small,” she says.

Vidya Pandit (Lucknow)

Wonder woman

She is writing nine books simultaneously, is involved in several conservation projects in Mumbai, is director of a book publishing company and manages a textiles retailing business. Meet Sharada Dwivedi, civic historian, conservationist, author, publisher and businesswoman who could teach most business leaders a thing or two about time management.

A commerce graduate of Mumbai’s Sydenham College, Dwivedi began her working career in the library of the American International School, Delhi. “I then went abroad to the US as part of an exchange programme and lived in New Hampshire with an American family. In the US I travelled quite a bit. It was an educationally rewarding experience because travel is the best education,” she opines. Upon her return to India, Dwivedi acquired a degree from Bombay University in 1965 and then proceeded to Paris on a scholarship the following year.

After her return to India, in 1966 following her marriage, she began to research the history of Indian Hotels Ltd and Mumbai’s Taj Mahal Hotel (est. 1904). Since then Dwivedi has authored 14 books. This was the starting point of a career as a corporate and civic historian focused upon Mumbai, the nation’s commercial capital.

Dwivedi’s range of interests is not confined to civic histories and conservation subjects. She is currently working on a gamut of books on topics ranging from women, traditional beauty secrets, the history of ICICI bank, a hotel, the transformation of an auditorium into an art gallery and another book about Mumbai. Dwivedi also writes for Indian and international journals on a variety of subjects including art, architecture, history etc.

While not at her desk, Dwivedi is involved with several conservation projects in Mumbai, particularly with the preservation and restoration of the ancient libraries of Elphinstone College and the Asiatic Society. She has served as a member of the Mumbai Heritage Conservation Committee and is on the executive committees of the Urban Design Research Institute (UDRI) and the Kala Ghoda Association, which hosts an arts festival every year. “Cities are living organisms with rich and valuable histories of art and architecture. Time and space must be found to chronicle and preserve paintings and monuments which tell their stories. And where there’s a will, there are ways. According to my research in Mumbai’s fort area alone there is 100,000 sq. ft available for art galleries and museums,” says Dwivedi.

Mona Barbhaya (Mumbai)