Article 1: A therapeutic session in India in Part III
“ Pascal Chazot et Anjou Musafir : Une session thérapeutique en Inde”

Article 2: Multi-disciplinary approach explained in Part II
“Pascal Chazot : Des fractions, des fleuves et des dieux”

UNIVERSITE PARIS 13:

Thesis: The construction of knowledge. A case-study at Mahatma Gandhi International School, Ahmedabad.

Pascal Chazot
Titre de la thèse : Co-naissance de la connaisssan- voyage au sein des processus d’apprentissageà l’école internationale Mahatma Gandhi en Inde. Directeur de thèse : Jean Biarnè
Link to a brief about the thesis subject (in French)

In 2007 his thesis was selected by the University of Paris (13) for an award for outstanding research. In a ceremony held in Paris on December 12 he was awarded a medal as well a Doctorate of Honor by the President of the University. The award was conferred in the presence of other researchers.
Pascal’s thesis is entitled

“Co-naissance de la connaissance”

In his work, he studies at length the teacher-student relationship with an exhaustive analysis of the learning process from the wholistic perspective. Pascal also wrote on what he termed as “The Ekalavya complex” based on an ancient tale from the Indian mythology of the Guru (teacher) and the disciple.

This award validates Pascal’s vision and work in creating the Mahatma Gandhi International School.

In the photograph above, Pascal Chazot (left) is accompanied by Prof. Jean Biarnes. In the photograph on the right, he is being awarded a medal and certificate by the President of University of Paris.

###

Co-written by: Anjou Musafir and Benjamin Mailian. Published in IB World Magazine.

VIDEO INSIDE THIS POST…

The ‘Matka fridge’ project for the village community

One of our memorable projects was a collaboration between the MYP Year 3 students of MGIS and the 7th Standard students of the Bopal Primary School (BPS), a rural government-run school. It is important to point out that the Bopal Primary School like most Government schools in India cater to the poorest of the poor. In BPS, the student community belongs to the backward castes and scheduled tribes.
While the Indian constitution considers all citizens equal, the caste system is still prevalent and the lower castes are considered untouchables. The average income of these students’ parents is around USD 40 per month.

Photo: MYP Year 3 students explain the earthen fridge to the press and school community during the Eco-Day fundraiser at Mahatma Gandhi International School.
The students collaborated to produce several pieces of the “Matka fridge’, a natural refrigeration appliance that would later go into the local villager’s homes. Matka is Hindi for earthen pot and is traditionally used all across the country for storing water.
The Matka Fridge is an appliance used in the desert regions in the olden days. It consists of two clay pots. One pot is cut at 60% of its height and the other pot is piled directly onto it. In between these two pots, there exists a small gap that we shall call a water compartment. The two pots are joined with cement, the water compartment is now sealed. A hole, one centimeter in diameter, is made to fill water in this compartment. The top pot is dry from inside and can store eatables. The earthen pot keeps the water cool, and in turn, the water cools the clay of the second pot above that contains eatables, explains an MYP year 3 student.
This simple device can store vegetables for upto 10 days in a state where temperatures soar to 45 °C.

The ‘Matka Fridge’ however is no longer seen in Indian homes even though it is almost a necessity given the climatic conditions and the economic status of so many Indians. The revival of this device was thus important.

Below is the movie made by the students on their project:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Over the course of 4 months, the students of MGIS overcame cultural barriers to investigate, design, produce, fund and distribute 40 ‘Matka fridge’ pots at a subsidized rate to the local community of the Bopal village where BPS is situated. All through the project MGIS students worked closely with the poor families in Bopal village, whose children go to the BPS.

The idea for this project hatched when MGIS co-founders Anjou Musafir and Pascal Chazot, visited the Bopal Primary School. The teacher Mahesh Thakker explained that the Bopal Primary School was a government school falling in the « Rural Category ». There is a high drop out rate and most students especially girls rarely manage to complete their seventh grade. These students have no interaction with any other schools or communities and the fact that they are backward castes leads to their being completely marginalized. Mahesh had an idea that if the students could be filmed and if they could see themselves on Television, this would incite them to attend school. We decided to keep this in mind.

The students and teachers received Pascal and Anjou very warmly. The teachers initially referred to the students as these poor helpless students. Pointing out to the BPS teachers that poverty was only an economic indicator, not an intellectual one, Anjou said that such terms should not be used for them in front of the students. The classrooms of this school, like many rural schools were bare, with the occasional neon light hanging from the ceiling, and the thick wooden benches dating back to long before these students were born. But shining within the room were the excited smiles of the students at the arrival of the visitors. We were determined to find some way of collaborating with this school. But just coming to the school and doing community service wherein the rural school students would remain passive receivers would only reinforce their opinion of themselves as helpless. Moreover, it would defeat the purpose as Community and Service is not synonymous with charity, explains Anjou.

She continues, As we racked our little grey cells, one of the teachers pointed to a forlorn looking earthen pot in a corner. This, he said proudly, was a model of the Matka fridge for which they had won the first prize in an all-State energy saving science fair. Intrigued, we put our hands in this earthen pot and to our amazement, the vegetables inside were as cool and fresh as in a refrigerator.
This was the catalyst we were looking for. This earthen fridge was an economical and truly eco-friendly appliance!

The Process
The students of MGIS loved the idea of working on this project. Ravinder Kaur, the main MYP Year 3 class teacher coordinated the efforts with the help of another MGIS teacher, Nirali Shah. Over the course of 20 sessions, the matka fridge project became a reality.
The learners were active agents in the construction and progress of this project. The role of the teachers throughout this project was to channelise the student’s energy in working towards goals and to introduce missing pieces into the learning process whenever it was necessary. The MYP Year 3 students suggested and developed activities in subgroups, then came together as a class to finalise the daily action plan. A good deal of planning was done prior to any visit to the rural school.

The students learnt to record the entire process in order to make a documentary. Right from the beginning, every stage was shot and filmed by the MGIS students.

Group work and Energy saving workshops

Photo: Ties between MGIS and BPS students grew out of group formation activities like this one. Here MGIS students initiate an activity where each student says her/his name with an action and other students subsequently repeat the name and action.

The initial sessions consisted of group formation and team building activities that MGIS students developed. Students of MGIS in sub-groups and often individually handled groups of students of BPS. The rather shy and awed students of BPS were encouraged to explain their matka fridge device to MGIS students and then explore the principles of energy saving mechanisms.
This lead to the MGIS students to later conducting what they called an ‘Energy Workshop’ in which the BPS students took part in physical activities seeking to introduce them to different types of energy, they classified different sources of energy and illustrated them in the form of collages. Students also did a preliminary survey of the different energy saving devices used in the village by meeting the local village residents.

Visit to local potter and making the Matka fridge
The next visits consisted of visiting the local potter to see how the Matka fridge could be produced and distributed effectively throughout the rural school community. The first Matka fridge prototype was problematic to assemble. Traditionally, the cutting of the lower clay pot is done once the clay pot is fired in the kiln. As it is brittle, many pots break leading to wastage and higher costs. Students reflected on this and began experimenting. MGIS students then arrived at the conclusion that time and material would be saved if the pot was cut while wet and on the potter’s wheel. Their experiment succeeded and a new technique was born. Students of both the schools then learnt the art of turning the potter’s wheel and making pots.

Survey of needs, determining costs, taking orders
The students went around to villager’s homes and conducted surveys on their food storing habits, on whether they would like to purchase the ‘Matka fridge’ and if yes at what price. Students explained the advantages of the ‘Matka fridge’ and discussed hygiene and health issues. They also succeeded in making the villagers aware of their own traditional techniques and their importance.
The students presented the collected data in tables, they sought to analyse the eating and food-storing habits of the villagers so as to ensure a comprehensive approach to the project. They then determined the costs and arrived at a feasible subsidized price of the ‘Matka fridge’.

They then returned to the villagers and took the orders.

Fundraising for the ’Matka fridge’
Photo: MYP Year 3 students sell their handmade eco-friendly products on Eco-Day. Students organised the Eco-day, a fundraising event to subsidise the Matka Fridges.

The students now organized an eco-day on the MGIS campus, a fundraising day in which students would sell their own handmade eco-friendly products. They worked steadfast to produce an amazing selection of products ranging from herbal face cleansing packs and bead jewelry to simple toys, tablemats, greeting cards and even rice paper lampshades. A great deal of new skills were learnt in this process. For example, students learnt to do electrical wiring and circuits and designed and produced lamp shades with wire frames in original shapes.
The students promoted the event by mobilizing the MGIS school community and at the end of the day, they had raised enough money to subsidise all of the Matka fridge orders. This event was covered by all the press and several television networks that beamed this event across the country.

Film Editing
After the eco-day, the students finalized the script of the film based on the footage on tape. In small subgroups, the students edited 10-minute sequences using the school computers. They learned voiceover techniques, video transitions, inter-group coordination and other useful professional skills associated with video-editing. This film will be screened by the government networks on television thus fulfilling the BPS teacher’s request.

Screening of film and distribution of  ’Matka fridge’
The project culminated in an evening at the Bopal Primary School with both school communities, including parents and faculty, coming together for the formal distribution of the Matka fridges to their righteous owners. The MGIS students performed a promotional song and a live product demonstration. They also projected edited video sequences of the Matka Fridge Project. The Bopal Primary School students were delighted to be onscreen. What will surely remain of this project is a genuine sense of achievement and lasting mutual-respect. Moreover, manual work that has little value in India was given its due importance and dignity. A traditional design was revived and improved upon. People learnt to take pride in their indigenous knowledge. More importantly, the MYP Year 3 students have gained newfound confidence to take up new challenges in the community. Concludes Mahesh Thakker from BPS  ”You do not know, but this interaction has been the turning point in the lives of these children. They are transformed by this experience”.

The Areas of Interaction
Photo: At the village potter’s shop, an MGIS student cuts an earthen pot to make the Matka Fridge.

This project covered all of the five Areas of Interaction. Environment was explored through the creation of the non-electric appliance, the use of eco-friendly material both for the fridge and the eco-day.
Health and Social Education was explored in the form of standing against social taboos like untouchability. In addition, the learners developed, implemented and reflected upon practices that are conducive to a healthy collaborative environment. They developed a greater understanding of their social responsibilities towards their peers.
Human Ingenuity had the students dwelling into the origins of refrigeration, its need, and the functioning of conventional refrigerators versus the principle behind the Matka Fridge. The revival of an ancient technique, its impact and their own innovation upon it is in the spirit of Human Ingenuity.
Community and Service was taken up through making refrigeration accessible to the Bopal villagers, through the conception and implementation of activities with the students of the Bopal Primary School, and in the fund-raising eco-day event. Awareness of their own traditional and indigenous knowledge was an essential contribution of our students.
Approaches To Learning included event promotion skills, the ability to adjust and function in new environments, the ability to select video footage to communicate a dynamic video presentation, the ability to work with strangers, learning to survey in unfamiliar environments, learning to conduct activities with other students, an awareness of the production process for a traditional home appliance

The subject areas integrated within this project:
Mathematics: Students designed surveys and interacted with the villagers to find out their food storing and eating habits. They collected the data, classified and analysed it using graphs and tabulated formats. They undertook all the costing of the whole project. They made budgets and managed the accounts.
Technology: The students maintained a thorough process journal. The creation of the Matka Fridge took them through the entire design cycle from investigation, to planning, creating and evaluation.
They completed the design cycle for the film project that included investigation, planning, filming, sound recording, getting feedback. In computer technology by learning different techniques of video-editing, using different softwares, do sound recording and editing.
Science: The project led to research into refrigeration and the workings of other cooling systems. The students performed experiments to determine thermal characteristics of various materials.
Humanities: Visiting the village was revelatory to the students, helping them to understand the problems faced by villagers. They studied development plans introduced by the government for rural areas. The students also looked at the social system of Indian society and compared urban with rural set-ups.
Languages: Students learnt the local languages (Gujarati) in the actual contextual situation. (In India, there are several languages and the local language is not always the mother tongue of the student. The national language is Hindi.)

At our school we decide on doing 2 or 3 main projects in every class. Every project will by its nature touch several disciplines. The faculty then takes up the syllabi of the State Board for the particular class and includes the parts that are covered. If anything is left, it can be covered in a smaller module.

Our school has chosen the MYP of the IB as it is the closest to our own philosophy of the learning process. What is of importance is not the content but the manner in which we learn. The content is not doled out in standard textbook formats. Children are encouraged to discover and seek information themselves from different sources. This can be done in several ways: books, encyclopedias, interviews oral and written, consulting CD-Roms, surfing the net, and interacting with people within and outside school. Children themselves then choose the information from these diverse sources and compile, interpret, discuss with peers and finally present it individually or in sub-groups. The IB also emphasizes that children become enquirers and not merely passive information receivers.

We use different modes of learning: the multi-sensorial approach, music, dramatics, verbal and non-verbal expression, visual and graphic arts, performing arts are used not just as a means to learn the content but also as a means to evaluate.
In terms of learning strategies, mostly and nearly exclusively the auditive mode is solicited from the learner in the traditional schools. When the visual is used, it is generally in the form of reading what is written on the black board. So the learner looks at what the teacher writes and is expected to listen to what the teacher says. The teacher is really active while the learners are passive recipients.
We have other modes of learning and perceiving the world that are at best neglected in the schooling system, worse discouraged. In the process we create children who are termed as having learning disabilities. We should actually rephrase it as teaching disabilities.
In brief, for us, the idea is to learn the content (and cover the syllabus which unfortunately appears to be the sole concern of some parents, regardless of whether the children have actually understood or not) using as many different channels and modes, employing as many diverse strategies that utilise and develop further the weaker modes of learning.

Finally, in terms of learning strategy, active and total participation from learners, a joyful co-construction of knowledge, we have one implicit motto: “Make it a game.” And children will become life-long learners.

The answer to the question “what method we are following” is again the same. We are really not following any one system. We have been inspired by several theories on education, we have been exposed to different practices and the result is a combination of these influences. We do not want this to become a fixed model so we have consciously not given it a name.

In terms of applicable practices we have combined elements of group dynamics, group psycho-therapy, art therapy, NLP, techniques of Yoga, Gestalt therapy… again the list is far from exhaustive.

There seems to be some evidence (Chazot, 2005) that the implicit and subconscious cultural influence plays an important role in the acceptance and openness in innovative practices. The oriental mindset is better-equipped to integrate changes in education, i.e.: in making the link between global realities (ecology) and academics.

A lot of the global issues being talked about today are those brought about by developed countries and directly affecting developing countries. The reality of these issues is much more tangible for students in developing countries who are, for instance, faced with contaminated water, rather than for students in the US who have been drinking tap water all their lives. When a school in a developing country genuinely understands its responsibilities, it can take up an issue that is very real to the students and their communities and often be very much at the center of global ecological concerns, making for a very rich learning experience.

Developed countries hear about greenhouse gas emissions, and toxic wastes being dumped into rivers, contaminated water and foods. Parents tell their kids, ‘there are children dying of hunger in the world and here you are wasting your food’, it’s absolutely true, but often far to removed a reality for children to understand. It took me until the age of 21 when I was in Cambodia to realize what those words meant, because just outside the terrace of the restaurant where I was eating, were children begging for my food. The food was terrible, and the restaurant staff would not let me give it to the children. I wound up forcing myself to finished the entire plate as the children looked on. That’s when I realized the meaning behind the cliché. There is a real challenge for schools in developed countries to make learners connect with global issues that are in other parts of the world and that seemingly have no direct impact on the learners’ life. How can we make students of developed countries experience this reality? What actions can they take? Learners of developing countries have very concrete material to work with, students of developed countries are confined to examining policies. While reviewing policies is essential, at the K-12 level, policies make for a very abstract experience. It’s this abstraction which fails to connect developed countries with global ecological realities, and it’s why residents of developed countries have no qualms about living grossly unsustainable lifestyles. This kind of environmental education is all the more important in a post-modern world where energy and environmental resources are the root cause of wars and other humanitarian conflicts.
If we are merely talking about abstract education from textbooks, then there is no learning worth mentioning in either developed or developing countries. What makes the learning experience empowering is taking action. Taking notes on pollution and visiting a recycling plant does little to sensitize learners. They need to be engaged in projects where they conceive and implement sustainable systems, or where they create sustainable products. If we really want to inculcate a rock-solid ecological foundation in students, telling them what they ought to be doing has no impact, showing them has some impact, but the success comes when learners can show us a new way of looking at these issues. The point is not to limit them to our knowledge and problem-solving skills by giving them ready-made answers, but to help them build their own. At MGIS, we achieve this goal by initiating projects like the Ecofridge Project, where students have a say in where the project is going, and actually go to visit villagers’ homes to understand the reality of the issues, and also to assess the effectiveness of their thinking in practice.

We don’t actually teach environment as a separate subject, but by taking on a project as per our pedagogy of Generated Resource Learning (GRL) (Chazot & Musafir, 2003), we cover competencies in science, languages, humanities, technology and other subjects throughout the course of a project. Essentially, we aim to make the learners not just aware of global issues, but proactive. More than passively reacting to government policy issues, we seek to educate human beings that will demand these more comprehensive environmental policies. And to do so, we equip the learners with a strong sense of responsibility towards the environment and with the tools to take informed and sensible decisions on related issues. Learners at MGIS become environmentally active from a young age in order to construct their reality of the world with this in mind.

References for this write impromptu article:
Chazot, P. (2005). Manuscript to be published
Chazot, P., Musafir, A. (2003). Une session thérapeutique en Inde. Cahiers Pedagogiques, 412: 71-73

Mahatma Gandhi International School is a unique pedagogical project where experiential learning is linked with formal training through project work. Education for us here goes beyond the realms of academics, it encompasses the holistic development of our children.

We have tried to create a community of learners who are open to the world and are receptive to its international diversity. We believe that diversity makes for a colourful and tremendously enriching learning experience and for this reason our student body is intentionally diverse. The intercultural awareness and appreciation that follows, enables a better understanding of oneself through the acknowledgement and respect of the “other”.

We have fought time and again to build this community, where the integrity of each human being coming from different cultures, countries, socio-economic situations, linguistic backgrounds, religions, ethnic groups?is recognised and appreciated; where each one has rights and more importantly the right to claim these rights. This freedom “to be” and “to express” reminds us of our responsibilities and helps us make responsible choices that don?t infringe upon the freedom of others.

OUR PEDAGOGY
We learn with an active pedagogy that respects the holistic nature of the learner (mind-body-speech) as well as the holistic nature of knowledge (multidisciplinary approach). This is realized through yearlong projects that explore several subjects while developing skills and understanding adapted to international reality.

Our uniqueness and excellence comes from our relentless commitment
to innovative pedagogical research and training.
- Benjamin Mailian, CAS Coordinator, MGIS -

Of this study, Smith, Cowie and Blades (1998) extract the following:

“In the study there were four boys and one girl, age range 9-1, with a mean age of 11.2. All were from poor backgrounds. They were recruited to the study from street-corner stalls where they were working with their parents or alone. Test items were posed by the researchers posing as customers in the course of a normal transaction. At the end of the informal test, the children were asked to take part in a formal test a week later administered by the same researcher. There were 99 questions in the formal test and 63 questions in the informal test. The order of testing was the same for all participants.

The informal test
This was carried out in Portuguese in the naturalistic setting of the street-corner market. A researcher, posing as a customer, asked the children successive questions about potential purchases. The responses were written down by another researcher. After receiving the answer, the researcher asked the child how they had solved the problem. Here is an example of an informal test taken by M. a 12-year-old vendor:

Researcher: How much is one coconut?
M.: 35.
Researcher: I’d like ten. How much is that?
M. (pause): Three will be 105, with three more, that will be 210. (Pause) I need four more. That is… (pause) … 315… I think it is 350.

M. has solved the problem the following way:
(a) 35 x 10
(b) 35 X 3 (a sum which he probably already knew)
(c) 105 + 105
(d) 210 + 105
(e) 315 + 35
(f) 3 + 3 + 3 + 1

Even though he had been taught in school to multiply any number by 10 you simply add a zero to the right of that number, M. used a different problem-solving routine.

The formal test
After the test in a naturalistic setting, participants were invited to take part in the second part of the study. This took place on the street corner or at the child’s home. The items for the formal test were devised on the basis of the problems which the child had successfully solved in the naturalistic context. These test items were presented as 38 mathematical problems dictated to the child (e.g. 105 + 105) and 61 word problems (e.g. Mary bought x bananas; each banana costs y; how much did she pay altogether). In either case, the child solved problems involving the same numbers as those which were used in the informal test. The children were given paper and pencil, and were encouraged to use them if they wished. When the problems were solved mentally, the child was still asked to write down the answer. Only one of the children refused to do this on the ground that he did not know how to write.” (P. 449-450)

Table 1 illustrates how the problems, which arose in the context of the street market, were much more easily solved than those that were formally imposed in the second test.

Table 1 Results of the tests expressed in terms of percentage of correct items divided by 10

Child’s Initial Test taken informally Test taken formally
M 10 2.5
P 8.9 3.7
P’ 10 5.0
MD 10 1.0
S 10 8.3

Smith, Cowie and Blades further observe:

“In the informal test, 98.2 per cent of the 63 problems were correctly solved. By contrast, in the informal test, word problems (which provided some context) were correctly answered in 73.7 per cent of cases; mathematical problems with no context were solved in only 36.8 per cent of cases. The frequency of correct answers for each child was converted into scores from 1 to 10 reflecting the percentage of correct answers. A two-way analysis of variance of score ranks compared the scores of each participant in the three types of testing situation. The scores differ significantly across conditions (X2 = 6.4. p = 0.039). Mann-Whitney U’s were calculated. The children performed better on the informal test than on the formal test (U = 0. p <0.05).” (P. 450)

Process versus procedure

One explanation for this different between the two tests was that the errors were due to the modifications made between the informal test and formal test. Researchers considered this explanation and tested it by segregating formal test problems that had been modified from those that were merely a reproduction of the informal test. There was no sizeable difference in the participants’ ability to solve one type of problem over another.

Another hypothesis was that participants were still at the concrete thinking stage, in other words: they succeeded in the informal test because the products were concretely there for them to see. Nunes and her colleagues dismissed this explanation because the mere presence of food does not facilitate mathematical calculations.

A third possibility backed by a qualitative analysis of the interview procedures put forward that the children used different routines in each of the two tests. Informally, the children calculated using ‘convenient groups’; in the formal test they were using the school-taught procedures and formulas. There are several conclusive instances of this third explanation. Here is how the 12-year-old M proceeded for the same problem in the informal and formal tests
Informal Test
Researcher: I’m going to take four coconuts. How much is that?
M.: Three will be 105, plus 30, that’s 135… one coconut is 35… that is 140!

Formal test
M. (while attempting to solve 35 x 4): 4 times 5 is 20, carry the 2; 2 plus 3 is 5, times 4 is 20.
Written answer: 200.

The children were far more successful when dealing with familiar quantities and mental calculations. They multiplied by repeating additions and at times grouping quantities. In the formal context the students used procedures learnt in school with little understanding. The children were able to double-check their answers in the informal test because they were using a procedure that worked for them. In the formal context, the children parroted procedures and as a result, none showed enough comprehension to be able to check their answers in the formal tests.

Nunes and her colleagues conclude that the thought process that occurs from daily ‘common sense’ can be at a superior level than context-less thinking. The researchers raise concerns about introducing out-of-context problems before they are encountered in real life situations. Many a times, the school-learnt routines acted as interference between the child and the solution, children were oblivious to even absurd answers.

Nunes, Carraher and Schliemann believe that teachers have a role to play in helping learners develop their strategies. Mathematics taught in school should act as a driving force that works with the learner and builds on her existing strategies where possible. To do so, it must be taken from everyday situations and appeal to the children’s common sense. The study has shown that children can develop their own mathematical routines, which can be very different from those learnt in school.

In short, we can observe that schools try to impose procedures which are meaningless for the learner while she already has valid processes to draw from. These processes are not only ignored but discredited. Teachers would have a lot to gain from understanding the processes already in place in the learner so to construct upon it.

References:
Smith, P., Cowie, H., and Blades M. (1998), Understanding Children’s Development. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers
Nunes, T., Carraher, D. W., and Schliemann A. D. (1985) British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 3, 21-9

MGIS provides a platform for active learning and freedom of expression in a non-threatening environment where children are free to experiment. The pedagogy is multi-sensorial and incorporates elements of therapy in what we have called Integrated Therapeutic Learning (ITL). At CARE, we work with the fundamental belief that a good pedagogy is inherently therapeutic.

The scope of research and theoretical foundation of CARE lies in qualitative education within the constructivist school of thought. The pedagogy is partly a novel synthesis of theories from Genetic Psychology (Piaget), Cultural Psychology (Bruner), Gestalt Therapy, Institutional Pedagogy (Group of Therapeutic Pedagogy), and the Palo Alto movement. The defining dynamic of the pedagogy is its application of unique theories developed through Research – Training – Action

CARE and the University of Paris XIII
The Centre for Action-Research in Education (CARE) is currently in the process of establishing a researcher exchange-programme with a prominent Parisian university involved in Sciences of Education. Our faculty has published over 150 articles on education in French and English in publications in Europe and Asia.

Authoring textbooks for the Gujarat Government
Four of our researchers feature as key authors on the Gujarat State Textbook Board. After 3 acclaimed Standard 1, 2 and 3 English and Environment textbook, we are continuing to co-author the state’s textbooks. We are now finalizing the Standard 8 English textbook. All of these textbooks is being used in public schools throughout the state of Gujarat — State population: 50 million.