Gurcharan Das
Keynote Speaker
Mr Gurcharan Das is a best-selling author, public intellectual and former CEO of Procter & Gamble India. He is a regular columnist for major national and internal publications, and often authors critical pieces on the Indian education system, school reforms, and education policy. Mr Gurcharan Das is also a prominent proponent of classical liberalism in India.
Parth J Shah
Speaker
Parth is the Founding President of Centre for Civil Society and also Co-Founder and Director of Indian School of Public Policy.His research and advocacy work focus on the themes of economic freedom (law, liberty and livelihood campaign), choice and competition in education (fund students, not schools), property rights approach for the environment (terracotta vision of stewardship), and good governance (new public management and the duty to publish).
Dr. Kulbhushan Sharma
Panelist
"Kulbhushan is President, Federation of Private Schools Association, Haryana. He is also President of National Independent Schools Alliance (NISA), State President of Patriotic Forum of India and State Working President of National Human Rights Protection Organisation. Previously, he has been general council member of the 'Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan' and member of the School Education Rules Review Committee. National Independent Schools Alliance (NISA) is a platform that brings together Budget Private Schools from across the country to give them a unified voice to address their concerns about legislations and byelaws which apply to them and to facilitate quality improvement in schools. As of 2017, NISA represents over 50,000 schools, from 23 state associations."
Harshit Mishra
Panelist
Deputy Adviser (Education), Niti Aayog
Dr. Geeta Gandhi Kingdon
Panelist
"Geeta Gandhi Kingdon is Professor at the Institute of Education, University College London, where she holds the Chair of Education Economics and International Development. Prior to this, she was Research Fellow for 11 years at the Department of Economics, University of Oxford. Her research on Economics of Education is based mostly on statistical analysis of education datasets. Based on this research, she advises governments and donor agencies. In India, she has been a member of the MHRD’s ‘Joint Review Missions’ of public education programmes Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan, and is a member of the Uttar Pradesh Secondary Education Board. Professor Kingdon is also President of the board of City Montessori School Lucknow, which has 52,000 students. She divides her time between the UK and India."
Lakshmi Sampath Goyal
Moderator
"Lakshmi is the Chief Executive Officer at CCS and was previously the CEO of the India Sanitation Coalition(ISC), a program housed in FICCI aimed at driving multi-stakeholder engagement to accelerate the adoption of sustainable sanitation practices in India through partnerships amongst the private sector, implementation partners, multilateral agencies and the governmental agencies. With a leadership career spanning over 25 years in Ogilvy, HSBC, and Standard Chartered Bank overseeing multi-geographic teams, Lakshmi has established credentials in leading and nurturing talented individuals and driving a high-performance culture. Apart from experience in brand management, Lakshmi brings with her a creative bent of mind and an in-depth understanding of research and consumer behaviour. Her last assignment in the corporate sector was at Standard Chartered Bank, where she was the South Asia head and Managing Director for Brand & Marketing. Lakshmi has a keen desire to contribute to society and is pursuing a second career in the development sector, with an active interest in education, gender, green environmentalism, sustainable livelihoods, and allied areas."
Dr. Lakshya Chhabaria
Panelist
"Dr Lakshya Chhabaria is an Edupeneur and the President of Affordable Private Schools’ Association and Managing Director of SR Capital Group of Schools.
Affordable Private Schools’ Association (APSA) is the association of 250 private schools in Delhi. APSA has the vision to connect progressive schools. APSA is regularly raising the voice of Affordable Schools in Delhi through all platforms such as News Papers, Social Media and Physical Meetings. APSA has filed several writ petitions in the Hon’ble High Court of Delhi related to EWS Reimbursement to the Private Schools and return under Sec 17(3) of DSEAR’1973. The association has organised various training workshops for the schools to improve the quality of education. The association is the Delhi Chapter of the National Independent Schools’ Alliance(NISA). APSA is doing advocacy on behalf of Affordable Schools. APSA has filed several writ petitions in the High Court of Delhi. APSA is constantly raising the concerns of Affordable Schools with the Govt. of NCT Delhi, CBSE, DCPCR and all authorities related with the schools.
SR Capital Public School is the high performing affordable private school, Model school of Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas. In-Depth Implementation of the Aatmanirbar Bharat Project with children. The school’s curriculum is designed to focus on developing soft skills within the children. The delegates from Google for Education, New Castle University UK, University of Chicago and various civil society researchers visited the school for their research.
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Mamta Saikia
Panelist
"Mamta Saikia is the Chief Executive Officer of Bharti Foundation, the development arm of Bharti Enterprises, one of India’s leading business groups with interests in telecom, agri business, financial services, retail, realty, and communication & media devices.
As the CEO of Bharti Foundation, Mamta plays a key role in project expansion and enhancement of quality standards and system efficiency, while constantly keeping the team morale high to deliver their best in challenging circumstances. She leads the development of the organization and its education programs at primary, elementary and senior secondary standards. Through her experience, clear vision and strategic thinking, she has also been able to establish a successful and replicable model of Public Private Partnership.
Mamta has worked with her team to transfer the learnings and good practices of the Satya Bharti School Program to Government Schools through the Satya Bharti Quality Support Program. The program envisages improving the quality of schooling through need-based interventions in government schools to take them on the path of excellence."
Dr. Arpan Krishna Deb
Panelist
Arpan is a PhD in Computational Condensed Matter Physics from University of Grenoble France. Previously he held position of Assistant Professor in Central University of Rajasthan, Research Scientist in IBM research Lab Bangalore and Research Fellow in Centre For Informatics in Shiv Nadar University. Currently he is a teacher in the senior school in Step By Step Noida. He is the vertical lead for the curriculum design of Science and head of Science in Middle School. He teaches classes from Grade 6 to Grade 12. He is a member of Sample Question Paper making in CBSE grade 10 and curriculum team for science as well.
Ruhaan Joshi
Moderator
Ruhaan is the Head of the Bolo-English Project. He was previously Associate Director of Research at Centre for Civil Society. He has a long experience of working in Education and Skill Development sectors with wide variety of organizations ranging from NGOs, Private companies to Government Departments. He has led multiple large scale projects in Education sector such a School Excellence Program of Mumbai Municipal Corporation, Skill Development Cell of the Dept of Social Justice and Special Assistance, Govt. of Maharashtra. His specialization is in working with the government on both strategy and implementation of projects run in collaboration with non-government and private players. Rohan has a Master’s Degree in Education from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, with specialization in Language Pedagogy and Education Policy. He is affiliated with a few non-government organizations in India in the capacity of advisor and board member. Besides Education, his main area of interest is Public Policy.
Neelinderjeet Kaur Sandhu
Moderator
"Neelinderjeet Kaur Sandhu is a renowned educator with over 22 years experience in the field of school education. Ms. Sandhu currently serves as the Director and Principal at the SD Vidya School in Ambala and Director at SD Vidya School, Noida. Ms. Sandhu is also a recepient of several awards for contribution to the field of education. The awards include State Awards by Government of Haryana and Government of Punjab. Apart from school education, Social Service, Mountaineering & Counselling are the other areas of interest for Ms. Sandhu. "