The challenge of education Is an invitation to all to use the personal and collective resources to begin to work within the system and effect change in the system itself. It has been a fairly common experience in the past that even those institutions which are very well endowed with excellent physical facilities, good and competent staff and a dynamic team leader as Principal, do not always find it possible to continue to remain open and innovative but having achieved a certain degree of excellence, tend to maintain status quo and remain in a state of freeze, not unlike frozen food, preserving indeed some of the original goodness, but unable to effect any real change thereafter.
They have become prisoners and remained within the bars that they have created and attribute the creation of these bars and prisons to the system. Who can release them from the bondage in which they are held captive? An external agency, a 'catalyst is often required to enable them to come alive again. Since schools. remaining alone, behind the isolation of their own walls have not always found it possible to remain open and creative. Isn’t it possible, even likely, that schools coming together in collaborative partnership would be able to generate the kind of synergy, which will produce the miracle and disprove the long held mathematical equation of 1 + 1 = 2 and produce instead the new equation, through synergy, of 14-1=3, 4 or more? Such coming together of schools, for the purpose of finding oneself and finding others, of rising not only alone but with others is the subject that we are exploring through this statement. Is It possible, through synergic alliance of schools to initiate a Sahodaya Movement? Can we establish a cluster of schools coming together to share dreams and purposes, |o develop strategies and action plans and thus become a mutually supporting and inter-dependent school complex? Why Sahodaya? Why not do it alone? It would be appropriate to refer to the success story of the ONGC in discovering and extracting oil One of the former Chairmen of ONGC had made this significant remark that “ oil is found In the mind of man” . Of course we know that oil Is found, off-shore in the continental shell of Bombay High and 6n-shore In Gujerat, Assam, Cauvery Basin and else where. But what the Chairman meant was that unless man brings to this difficult task, special qualities of mind and heart, unless there Is willingness and courage to explore under very Inhospitable conditions, unless there is ability to create, to improvise* to change and to take appropriate decisions, unless there Is the inner strength not to quit in the face of repeated failures, oil will remain largely undiscovered or at best under-discovered. Besides, such a big task is not possible without a team of committed persons working closely together, since the task Is of an extremely complex nature and requires the coordinated competences of many to work in harmony. We, therefore, believe that the extremely challenging and difficult task of education can best be done not alone but together. We believe that the energizing influence that would come from friendly interaction between schools will provide the catalyst and bring to the fore the dormant, creative energies existing in the different schools today. We believe that the biggest concentration of real resources and competences lie within the schools themselves and not outside them, in special agencies and experts. We believe that no amount of external support and much less no amount of regulations and directions will give life and substance to the educational process but it is in the discovery and development of the resources within that educational renewal must start. Those outside cannot initiate change that will last, though they can certainly provide facilitation, encouragement and support. School Complex as Catalyst the Education Commission Report (1964-66), clearly saw the need for establishing School Complexes and strongly recommended that a collaborative approach to educational imf>movement should be tried out in the field. It is a sad commentary on our inability to move from idea to action that even today, School Complexes remain largely a good idea. The new National Policy on Education (1986) proposes an overhaul of the system of planning and the management of education, and gives this aspect high priority. In the Policy Document (10.1), the guiding considerations are listed as follows
(a) “ Evolving a long-term planning and management perspective of education and its integration with the country’s developmental and manpower need;
(b) Decentralization and the creation of a spirit of autonomy for educational institutions;
(c) Giving pre-eminence to people’s movement, including association of non-governmental agencies and voluntary effort;
(d) Inducting more women in the planning and management of education; and
(e) Establishing the principle of accountability in relation to given objectives and norms.”
While talking of ways and means of operationalizing the above guiding principles, at the district and local levels, the Policy document states : “ A very Important role must be assigned to the Head of an institution. Heads will be specially selected and trained. School complexes will be promoted on a flexible pattern so as to serve as networks of institutions and synergic alliances to encourage professionalism among teachers, to ensure observance of norms of conduct and to enable the sharing of experiences and facilities. It is expected that a developed system of school complexes will take over much of the inspection functions, in due course” (10.7). National Conference Recommends Hence the National Conference of Principals of CBSE affiliated Schools, which met in New Delhi on October 4-6, 1986, resolved that the Board should invite schools to come together and form Sahodaya Schools Complexes. To quote the relevant recommendation: “We accept the necessity for establishing School Complexes, which we have named ‘Sahodaya School, Complexes’ so that the isolation that exists today between schools will give way to a spirit of partnership, and schools within the complex will work together and rise together.
Among the major responsibilities of the complex are :
— Professional orientation and updating of the teachers so as to enable them to transact the curriculum effectively;
— Development o( suitable support materials and teaching aids;
— Mutual and on-going' supervision of schools within the complex;
— Resource mobilization both from within the complex and from those located outside, and for their optimal use
Hence, we envisage Sahodaya Schools Complex (SSC) as a voluntary association of schools within an area, who through mutual choices, have agreed to come together for a systematic and system-wide renewal of the total educational process. Accordingly, the number of the schools within a complex may vary according to the location, and the density of schools in the area.