Transcript of Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam's Foundation Day Lecture

Light the lamp of knowledge

May I be a protector for those without one, A guide for all travelers on the way; May I be a bridge, a boat and a ship For all who wish to cross (the water).

by Acharya Shantideva,
A Buddhist Master of 8th century

I am indeed delighted to address the 24th Foundation day of National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS). My greetings to the Chairman, Directors, Faculty, Staff and the NIOS Coordinators (Teachers), NIOS Expert Faculty members, Administrative Staff members from NIOS, participating affiliated Schools, regional centers, and also the representatives from the study centre from Middle East and Nepal, NIOS Learners (Students) and the distinguished guests. I am very happy to know that NIOS is the largest open school in the world with a cumulative enrolment of 2.02 million learners. NIOS offers Flexible Academic, Vocational and Life Enrichment courses at the Secondary, Senior Secondary and Elementary [Open Basic Education (OBE)] level through its 5813 study centers spread throughout the length and breadth of the country, 20 study centers in Middle East and Nepal. I am very happy to know that in the year 2012 itself, 1400 Learners out of 4500 Learners of NIOS from Senior Secondary school has cleared the AIEEE exam for engineering courses competitively and a number of students cleared the AIPMT Exam for obtaining MBBS. When I see the principals and teachers and successful students through open school system, let me share my thoughts on the topic "Light the lamp of knowledge".

Students as Competitive Quality Learners

I like the unique concept of NIOS by naming the students as Learners. It is a great shift in education. NIOS efforts in providing quality education through their network of study centers had made the students as competitive as compared to the other Education boards such as State boards, CBSE, ICSE and other boards. I am very happy to know that in the year 2012 itself, 1400 Learners out of 4500 Learners of NIOS from Senior Secondary school has cleared the AIEEE exam for engineering courses competitively and a number of students cleared the AIPMT Exam for obtaining MBBS.

One of the unique concepts of NIOS is any student who has failed to clear some subjects of the CBSE or any board exam, may appear the On-Demand Exam conducted by NIOS throughout the year flexibly and get it cleared immediately with the credit transfer certificate from NIOS if the candidate qualifies in the NIOS exam.

Dear friends, I would like to share two experiences which I came across personally at various times that are relevant for today.

Bride at Ten, Mother at Fifteen, MA at 80

Dear friends, on 19th Nov, in my home I had a very interesting visit of the family led by an 88 year old great woman with her daughter a Professor at JNU and her son-in-law a journalist. She explained to me, her ambition and struggle, in an orthodox family, to get a graduate degree. But her formal education was only 5th Class. This respectful lady?s name is Smt Sethu Ramaswamy. She gave me a book titled 'Bride at Ten, Mother at Fifteen', written by her recently. The marriage and intensive family commitments, children, grand children, great grand children and also her family circumstances did not allow her to fulfil her ambition to become a graduate. The need of light of knowledge kept her dreaming that one day she will become a Post Graduate. She was married to a freelance journalist at the age of ten, and became a mother at the age of fifteen. In the book, she says,

"All her life, like countless Indian housewives, I was an unknown woman - a woman of no consequence. But at the age of 80, I became a known Indian woman - a person of some consequence. What had I achieved in my life until that point? I had brought up six daughters, the first being born when I was fifteen, the last when I was twenty nine."
It is the saga of a woman who has lived in two countries and seen her own family make the transition from tradition to modernity. She had seen the ups and downs in her life while bringing up her daughters. I was astonished to know the indomitable spirit of a mother and she had a great aim which was fulfilled at her age of 80. Her desire was to acquire a Master's degree in her life time. She worked, worked and worked while taking care during her daughters' childbearing. With all the family commitments she was proud to announce everywhere that she is appearing for M.A degree, at the age of 78, through Distance Education mode from Annamalai University at Delhi Centre. When she passed the M.A degree examination, she proudly says that,
"I passed my M.A and my degree came by post. It was a bare second division but I had at last fulfilled a great desire, my life's ambition which was burning within me"
. The message what we derive from this is:
"Age doesn't matter, if you have a great aim in life, you can achieve, achieve and achieve"

Experience of Madam Sethu Ramaswamy getting her MA degree is a radiating learning and a life long process which is an inspiration. Let me narrate another experience which I am personally involved.

It doesn't matter who you are?

Friends, it was in the year 2011, I went to Madurai for inaugurating the Pediatric Oncology Cancer unit at Meenakshi Mission Hospital on 7 Jan 2011. When I completed the task, suddenly one person was approached me and his face was familiar to me. When he came closer to me, I found out that it was V. Kathiresan, who worked with me as Driver, during my DRDL days at Hyderabad. He worked with me day and night for nine years. During that time, I used to witness, he was always reading some books, newspapers and journals during his free time. He had a very high concentration on his reading. That dedication attracted me. I asked him a question? What made you to read during your leisure time? He replied that he had a son and daughter. They used to ask him lot of questions. That made him to study and try to answer to his level best. The spirit of learning in him, attracted me, I told him to study formally through the distance education mode and gave him some free time to attend the course and complete his +2 and then to apply for higher education. He took that as a challenge and kept on studying and acquiring his skills and upgraded his educational qualification, he did B.A. (History), then he did M.A (History) and then he did M.A (Political Science) and completed his B.Ed and then M.Ed. Then he registered for his Ph.D in Manonmaniam Sundaranar University and got his PhD in 2001. He joined the Education Department of Tamilnadu Government and served for number of years. In 2010, he became an Assistant Professor in the Government Arts College at Mellur near Madurai. What a commitment and dedication that has helped him to acquire the right skills in his leisure time that has made his career progress and upgrade his livelihood. The message is, it doesn?t matter who you are if you have a vision and determination to achieve that vision, you will certainly achieve.

Friends, it was in the year 2011, I went to Madurai for inaugurating the Pediatric Oncology Cancer unit at Meenakshi Mission Hospital on 7 Jan 2011. When I completed the task, suddenly one person was approached me and his face was familiar to me. When he came closer to me, I found out that it was V. Kathiresan, who worked with me as Driver, during my DRDL days at Hyderabad. He worked with me day and night for nine years. During that time, I used to witness, he was always reading some books, newspapers and journals during his free time. He had a very high concentration on his reading. That dedication attracted me. I asked him a question? What made you to read during your leisure time? He replied that he had a son and daughter. They used to ask him lot of questions. That made him to study and try to answer to his level best. The spirit of learning in him, attracted me, I told him to study formally through the distance education mode and gave him some free time to attend the course and complete his +2 and then to apply for higher education. He took that as a challenge and kept on studying and acquiring his skills and upgraded his educational qualification, he did B.A. (History), then he did M.A (History) and then he did M.A (Political Science) and completed his B.Ed and then M.Ed. Then he registered for his Ph.D in Manonmaniam Sundaranar University and got his PhD in 2001. He joined the Education Department of Tamilnadu Government and served for number of years. In 2010, he became an Assistant Professor in the Government Arts College at Mellur near Madurai. What a commitment and dedication that has helped him to acquire the right skills in his leisure time that has made his career progress and upgrade his livelihood. The message is, it doesn?t matter who you are if you have a vision and determination to achieve that vision, you will certainly achieve.

"When you wish upon a star, Makes no difference who you are Anything your heart desires will come to you"

Friends, teachers create beautiful minds. Beautiful minds are creative and many times with indomitable spirit. Our nation was fortunate to have beautiful minds in science, humanities, law, industry and political leadership right from our pre-independent period who were created by great teachers and due to whose efforts, we are experiencing the freedom and growth of our country today.

Teachers who love teaching

Friends, I visualize a scene - a school having about 50 teachers and 750 students headed by a Principal. It is simply a place of beauty for creativity and learning. How is it possible? It is because the school management and the Principal selected the teachers who love teaching, who treat the students as their sons, grandsons or grand daughters. The children see the teacher, as a role model in teaching and always look pious through their daily way of life. Above all, I see an environment in which there is nothing like a good student, average student or poor student. The whole school and teacher system is involved in generating students who perform the best. One great example is my primary school teacher Shri Sivasubramania Iyer who taught us, when I was ten year old boy. During one of his classes he was explaining how birds fly. When most of students told that they didn?t understand fully about the flight of birds, he took us to the sea-shore to give practical example. The way he taught gave me what to dream in life and what should be the pattern of education which I have to follow. And above all what should be the traits I should possess based on teachers life both inside the class room and in the village. I have witnessed, as a young boy of 5th class, when my teacher enters the class room, we saw in him "radiating the knowledge and also radiating purity of life". Students indeed in school learn not only knowledge but also purity of life and ethics of the great teachers. This race of teachers should multiply.

Teacher as a facilitator of innovation

Friends, teachers have to emerge as facilitator of new ideas and lead to lifelong innovative thinking in the young minds. This reminds me of a poem "The Student's Prayer" by a Chilean biologist Maturana. I will narrate a few lines from the poem.

The Student's Prayer

Show me so that I can stand
On your shoulders.
Reveal yourself so that I can be
Something different

Don?t impose on me what you know,
I want to explore the unknown
And be the source of my own discoveries.
Let the known be my liberation, not my slavery.

I am sure, the Principals and teachers assembled here would be great facilitators of learning and innovation.

Dynamics of Smile

When we see a child, we see the innocent smile of the child. When we come across the child in the Primary School, the smile is reduced as the child has to carry a heavy school bag. When we see the child in their teens, their smile slowly fades away and the sign of concern appears. This is because of the anxiety about the future. When they complete their education, the most important question in their mind is, what will I do after my education? Will I get an employment? Will I get a proper employment? Can the Principals and teachers see this dynamics of smiles of the child and preserve the smile in their faces when they complete their school education. The Student should be confident that "I can do it", she or he should have the self esteem and the capability to become an employment generator rather being an employment seeker. The management of education, leader of education has to facilitate such type of creative teacher in large numbers in primary school and then the secondary school. This transformation can only be brought about by a teacher who has a vision to transform, who has the ability to take risk against all challenges, who is a good listener, who is a good innovator, who maintains a cordial inter-personal or intrapersonal relationship and who has the ability to carry the parents, community, media and the teachers for accomplishing the vision of generating an enlightened citizen for the nation

Dynamic school

Since I see, in the audience, a number of school principals, teachers and connected members I thought of sharing my view on how a dynamic school should be, so that you will impart dynamic school characteristics to Open School candidates.

  1. A school that radiates greatness by the teaching capacity of the teachers.
  2. A school is great because creativity is bubbling everywhere.
  3. A school is great, because it cherishes the learning environment with library, internet, e-learning and creative laboratories.
  4. A School is great, because it creates and generate students with confidence that "I can do it" that in-turn will generate the team spirit that "We will do it" and "India will do it".
  5. A School that promotes best in learning all-round to all the students.
  6. A School is great because it has teachers who lead a unique way of life with purity and become role models for the students and develop them as enlightened citizens.
  7. A School is great because it has the capacity to teach all students to succeed.
  8. A School that generates creativity among all students irrespective of whether they belong to arts or science stream.
  9. A school is great, that generates alumni who cherish that they belong to this school.

NIOS Smart HDVT Network

For creating such type of dynamics of smiles in the face of NIOS Learning community, we need to outreach quality education, quality teachers, quality laboratory, quality library and quality content across the country to reach out 2 million learners community registered in various schools from the NIOS Studio in the similar lines of Pan African e-Network implemented by Govt. of India for connecting 53 African nations to provide quality education, healthcare and e-governance services. Hence, I suggest NIOS to study the Pan African e-Network and may like to consider creating a NIOS Smart High Definition Virtual Tele-presence network to empower the students who are presently attending only the contact classes in the affiliated schools and having their own private study. This will help NIOS to outreach quality education across the country seamlessly for creative quality human resource cadre for higher education segment, which will not only bring down the dropout rates, but create highly competitive students for higher education system in the country in addition to the learning contents and tools provided by NIOS.

Conclusion: Mission of Teaching

When I see you all, dear friends, I see one integrated system of education, system of learning and system of knowledge. The seeds of peace in the world have its origin of righteousness in the heart of every individual. Such righteous citizens lead to the evolution of enlightened society. Education with value system has to be designed so that the righteousness in the heart is developed in young minds. That should be the mission of education. The prime learning environment is five to seventeen years of age for over 25,000 hours. This reminds me of an ancient Greek teacher's saying,

"Give me a child for seven years; afterwards, and let God or devil take the child. They cannot change the child".
This indicates the power of great teachers. True education is the acquisition of enlightened feelings and enlightened powers to understand daily events and to understand the truth by linking citizens to their environment and the planet we live. I would like to quote from the great philosopher Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, particularly for the benefit of students and teachers -
"The sense of human need is there and the teacher can satisfy it by giving to the youth an idea of the fundamental power and worth of man, his spiritual dignity as man, a supra-national culture and an all embracing humanity."

My best wishes to all of you success in the educational mission of NIOS to make the nation a knowledge society.
May God Bless You.

I would like to give an eleven point oath to the teaching community who are the creators of nation building.

Eleven Point Oath for Teaching Community

  1. First and foremost, I love teaching. Teaching will be my soul.
  2. I realize that I am responsible for shaping not just students but ignited youths who are the most powerful resource under the earth, on the earth and above the earth. I will be fully committed for the great mission of teaching.
  3. I will consider myself to be a great teacher for I can lift the average to the best performance by way of my special teaching.
  4. All my actions with my students will be with kindness and affection like a mother, father, sister or brother.
  5. I will organize and conduct my life, in such a way that my life itself is a message for my students.
  6. I will encourage my students and children to ask questions and develop the spirit of enquiry, so that they blossom into creative enlightened citizens.
  7. I will treat all the students equally and will not support any differentiation on account of religion, community or language.
  8. I will continuously build the capacities in teaching so that I can impart quality education to my students.
  9. I will celebrate the success of my students, with great elegance.
  10. I realize, being a teacher, I am making an important contribution to all the national development initiatives.
  11. I will constantly endeavour to fill my mind with great thoughts and spread the nobility in thinking and action.

By, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam