Stir Education in Advanc'edge October 2012

44 Advanc’edge MBA October 2012 www.advancedge.com

CORPORATE SPEAK

Tell us about your journey till you started STIR.I’m a social entrepreneur by career. I have set up an NGO which is trying to make a social impact both in the UK and overseas. Previously I worked in the corporate sector with the consultants Booz and Company and eBay as well. I also ran an IT company in Asia about a decade ago. Along the way, I’ve taken time to work in the social sector as well. I did my MBA at INSEAD in France.

Tell us about your education.I spent my fi rst few years in India, did my schooling mostly in the UK and the Middle East, in the British system and completed my undergraduate degree in Economics from Cambridge. My fi rst stint, for four and a half years was with Booz and Company – the management consultants, which gave me practical experience. I worked with ActionAid for a while. Following this I set up an IT company. I then enjoyed working in the corporate sector but after running the company for a while, I decided to take a breather and consolidate the learning from this sector. So I made up my mind to do the MBA. This was very useful as it introduced me to different fi elds and subject areas of management.

What would you say, have been the most valuable lessons you’ve learnt on the way?Probably the fi rst lesson I’ve learnt is that having a good link between your work experience and education is very useful. It helps to have work experience of a few years before doing the MBA because you can really apply what you are learning to practical experiences. Secondly is that it is always good to continue to learn even if you are not in a formal setting. Even now when I’m not studying, I’m lucky enough to be able to go for conferences and hear eminent people speak. I read a lot about what is happening in the fi eld, I meet a lot of people who are developing new things and innovating in lots of ways, therefore, I’m still learning; and being able to continue to learn, even if it is not in a formal educational environment, is useful.

How did STIR start out? What does it hope to achieve?Basically it came from the realisation that a lot of schools and teachers should be at the heart of changing education and approving standards. In

Creating a STIR for better education

SHARATH JEEVAN served as Founding CEO of Teaching Leaders, an initiative in the UK’s most disadvantaged schools, and was formerly Head of Social Ventures at eBay UK. He is CEO of GlobalGiving.co.uk. He has an Economics degree from Cambridge, Masters from Oxford, and MBA from INSEAD. Now, he tells Puja Shah about his initiative in India called Schools

& Teachers Innovating for Results Education (STIR), an NGO working on grassroots ‘micro-innovations’ of schools and teachers across the world to help disadvantaged children.

Advanc’edge MBA October 2012www.advancedge.com 45

CORPORATE SPEAK

India, about 60 million more children are going to school than before which is an amazing figure. Also, about 95% have access to free schooling which is again pretty impressive. Many other countries have also had an equal level of improvement, but what is also important to note is that the quality of education is not always high enough, especially for the disadvantaged children. So, at STIR, we think about solutions to that, in terms of what the teachers are already doing in the classrooms, in the way the schools are being managed, in the way parents are being engaged. We have created an organisation that tries to find innovative teaching practices and choose the best ones. We work with teachers, test if these ideas would work with other schools and if required, we align with the government, private sector and NGOs to get these ideas scaled up so that they can reach millions of children across the globe, over the coming years.

What plans do you have for STIR India?Now that we are formally working in India, we have been searching for the best ideas in Delhi, for the last three months. We are trying to find best ideas across both NGO run schools and affordable private schools where the fees are usually 300-400 rupees a month and also across government schools. The team in Delhi has visited about 250 schools so far. Many ideas

have come through. We have had almost 200 ideas come to us from those visits and we are taking the best 45-50 through to the final selection in the next expecting to actually pick the 25 we want to work with in Delhi. We want to test and see if these can be scaled up. Just to mention some of the ideas that had potential – One is that we had a teacher who found that kids are often very good at math when they are helping their parents in the shops or grocery

stores but when in the classrooms, they can’t grasp concepts, so, she brought monopoly money into the classroom. Another teacher found that kids find poetry very difficult so she brought in bollywood music to make poetry relevant to them. These are small scale and low cost innovations but if they could be rolled out across India they could make an enormous difference.

What are the challenges you expect? Have you faced any resistance?Not yet. I think everyone has been very supportive. Initially, we were worried if teachers would want to take part in this, since they are not being paid for this. We have teachers innovation programmes, wherein we will be helping train them to influence others, to measure performances and to enhance their teaching methods. The most exciting thing is that an idea that might start in the east somewhere and end

up in Nairobi or Brazil. We are trying to create a global network so that ideas can flow to other parts of the world.

MBA specialising in social service is an upcoming trend in India, what skill-sets are required in this sector?What makes the social sector different from the commercial sector is the ability to communicate a clear vision in a compelling way. Also, it is necessary for someone in this sector to be able to tell a story effectively and get people to support you and the vision as well. Passion and vision are most important so is working in a large network. We are a small organisation, employing

Schools and teachers should be at the heart of changing education.The quality of education is not always high enough, especially for the disadvantaged children in the world.

India needs more teachers to help disadvantaged children

46 Advanc’edge MBA October 2012 www.advancedge.com

CORPORATE SPEAK

The most exciting thing is that an idea might start in the East somewhere and end up in Nairobi or Brazil. We are trying to create a global network for ideas to flow across the world.

less than ten staff members but we work with about 35 partner organisations in India, ranging from the Azim Premji foundation to Teach for India and of course the government. So, being able help manage and understand partners is a key skill in the social sector. The third skill which is extremely important is how to measure the impact - understanding how to design a programme, what is working and what needs to be changed. It is difficult to measure success in this field, whereas, in the commercial sector it is more straightforward to measure it in terms of financial gain. Lastly, if you are a leader in your organisation you need to raise funds effectively, to be able to get support and resources from foundations, the government or corporates.

What, according to you, are the most challenging and rewarding aspects of your job?The most rewarding aspect is the range of people you get to see. For example, I might visit a few schools in the morning, might meet a corporate partner later on to discuss a collaboration, after that I might meet a policy maker to talk about the work we want to do. So the range of people is really exciting. We also see different parts of society collide with each other. People who might never meet socially actually come together to work.

The challenging side is that we are still a young organisation. We know what our vision is but we have to learn as we go along.

Did your management education help you reach this place in your career?Yes it did. Enormously. It is always good to have a general management perspective. It covers all the key areas. It helps me when I have to work on finance issues and also when I have to strategise or consider partner collaborations. It doesn’t make you an expert but it helps in asking the right questions.

It is a good credibility sign as well. If you want funding or are trying to attract partnerships, most people like to know that the person they are considering doing business with has a good management or a business background.

It also provides you with a great network of people, in India as well as around the world. Many of my alumni are business leaders or are in the government and are very open to being approached.

What is your opinion of management education in India? It clearly has a lot of variety. But my main observation is that practicality of training is lacking. It is changing gradually but compared to a lot of other countries there is pretty meagre work experience. There needs to be a stronger practical element, more useful internships and corporate projects. Basically business schools in India should link the industry or corporate world more closely with classroom education.

Your advice to young MBA aspirants who want to be achievers….Be clear about your goal and try to find the right path to get there. Be open to moving around and trying different things. Some people are lucky. They come out of business school and they know exactly what they want to do. I did as well. I knew I wanted to be a social entrepreneur but I wasn’t sure of how to get there. So I tried some years in consulting where I learnt a lot about management life and how to approach problems. I spent some years in the commercial sector as well. So basically you need to be adventurous and not shy away from trying different experiences. It might ultimately lead you to where you want to be.

STIR aims to better quality of education for disadvantaged kids.