List of Speakers for 3rd Ed Leadership Round 2009 |
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Prof Geeta Gandhi Kingdon Chair, Education Economics & Int. Development, Institute Of Education, London University, UK Geeta Kingdon is Professor of Education and International Development at the Institute of Education, London University, and was until recently a Research Fellow at the Department of Economics, University of Oxford. She lectures in Development Economics and her research interests include Economics of Education, Labour Economics and the Economics of Happiness, mostly in countries of South Asia and Africa. Her work is based on micro-econometric analysis of survey data and has resulted in more than 25 papers in peer reviewed Economics and Development Economics journals. She is on the Editorial Board of three academic journals and does extensive academic refereeing as well as advisory work for governments and donor agencies. |
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Dr Robert J Saunders Co-Founder of the Council for Global Education, USA Dr Robert John Saunders is the co-founder of the Council for Global Education, USA, founded to promote a global vision of education more suited to the needs of the 21st century and to meet the new aspirations of individuals everywhere. He has shared experiences and worked with business persons, government officials, nonprofit groups, and academics at all levels in 80 countries on six continents. After a Ph.D. in Economics from The University of Kentucky on a National Defense Fellowship, Bob went on to become the Director of Graduate Programmes and Acting Director, Regional Research Institute, West Virginia University. After this, he was appointed Chairman and Professor and Director, Center for Business and Economic Research, Kent State University. |
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Dr Jagdish Gandhi
Founder-Manager, CMS Mr. Jagdish Gandhi founded the City Montessori School (CMS) in 1959 with only 5 students. Today, CMS is recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's largest school by pupils with over 36,000 students on rolls. CMS has also been awarded the highly prestigious UNESCO Prize for Peace Education 2002 - the only school in the world to be honoured with this award. CMS also organizes 24 international events as part of its unique educational philosophy and hundreds of thousands of children from all over the world participate in these events every year. Consequently, the CMS educational model which believes that "School must be the Lighthouse of Society" and which upholds that nurturing spiritual awareness in children must be the central focus of all educational activities, has grown into a veritable school of thought, impacting schools and educational organisations worldwide. | |||
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Dr (Mrs) Bharti Gandhi Founder-Director, CMS Mrs. Bharti Gandhi's name has become synonymous with City Montessori School and CMS Teachers' Training College in Lucknow. Her sincere devotion towards the education of children, training of teachers, upliftment of women and eradication of social evils, is widely recognized in educational circles. The CMS which she founded together with her husband, Mr. Jagdish Gandhi, now has over 35,000 students, a Guinness World Record for largest number of students in a single city. |
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Dr Sunita Gandhi PhD, Cambridge University, UK Sunita Gandhi started her first school at the age of 14 for the underprivileged children in her neighbourhood. After completing Class X, she moved to the UK to do A-Levels following which Sunita received three merit based scholarships to undertake her doctorate programme in Physics at Cambridge University. Subsequently, she founded schools in Prague, the Czech Republic and in Hafnarfjordur, Iceland, where she began in 2000 to experiment with and pilot her Global Education Model of Schooling, or the GEMS “Dynamic”. In the 26 years abroad, Sunita has lived in the UK, USA, the Czech Republic and Iceland and carried out educational projects and traveled to 34 countries. |
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Ms Ashalata Badami Mathematics Expert (confirmed) A product of the teachers training course at Sophia College, Mumbai, Ms Badami taught activity based Mathematics to primary school children in Bombay International School, Mumbai during the early years of her career. She was responsible for setting up the entire primary maths programme in the school and was also Coordinator, Middle School Maths when she left Mumbai for Delhi in 2001. She had a maths column called ‘Mathsense” going for three years in Midday, the afternoon newspaper of Mumbai. In addition she wrote frequently for several newspapers like the Hindu and the Times, as well as children’s magazines. She also regularly conducted workshops for the British Council and Nehru Science Centre in MumbaiAfter she shifted to Delhi, she became a full time resource person and consultant working with several reputed schools like Sardar Patel Vidyalaya and Bluebells International setting up their Maths Lab, being involved in curriculum planning, as well as working with remedial and gifted students. She has written two series of books for Oxford University Press called Discovering Mathematics and New Enjoying Mathematics along with teacher manuals. |
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Mr Samarendra Kumar Project Coordinator Regional Science City Samarendra Kumar is currently working as the Project Coordinator for the Regional Science City - Lucknow. He has also worked in the Kurukshetra Panorama & Science Centre, Kurukshetra as the Project Coordinator and the Nehru Science Centre, Mumbai as the Curator (National Council of Science Museums, Kolkata)He visited USA (2008) and UK (2007) to attend annual ASTC conference at Philadelphia, USA and also visited New York Hall of Science, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC for enrichment of Science Communication in Museum, visited NESTA, London, several other Science Centers & Museums in UK respectively. He even visited USA and UK (Europe) to attend Annual ASTC conference at Phoenix, Arizona and visited The Exploratorium in California and Science Museum in London and other places. He also visited Finland (Europe) during August, 1997 under INDO-FINNISH Cultural Exchange programme. The programme consisted of a 3-week study-tour of Museum and Science Centers of Finland. In addition to the work of the Kurukshetra Panorama & Science Centre, was also involved in setting Maharaja Ranjit Singh Panorama, at Amritsar by National Council of Science Museums. These include setting up of a large panorama & dioramas on the life of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. |
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Ms Meli Glenn Meli Glenn is a Research Officer at the London Centre for Leadership in Learning (LCLL) and Thomas Coram Research Unit (TCRU) at the Institute of Education (IOE), University of London, with experience in educational research and evaluation. Her work has focused on leadership development, community cohesion, and children from care backgrounds. She has also been a teacher at a Montessori primary school and a TEFL teacher in a number of countries. As a teacher trainer in Guinea, West Africa for USAID, she provided professional development support to teacher trainers. She also ran a number of workshops for pre-service teachers such as reading programs, active learning techniques, and curriculum innovation. |
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Ms Susmita Basu Head, Quality Assurance and Innovations Department, CMS Ms Susmita Basu is the Head, City Montessori School Innovations Department, vested with the responsibility of academic improvement at all the 20 branches of City Montessori group of schools in Lucknow. With a staff of over 40 teachers, Susmita has managed supervision and quality assurance, trained teachers, created curriculum guidelines, finalized each academic year syllabus and booklists and implemented the learning programmes at CMS. |
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Ms Indira Eisenberg / Mr Jürgen Eisenberg She have completed a 5 year Integrated M.A Programme in German Language from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She worked for few years as a Translator. She then quit to join to take teaching as a profession. She worked with children in a small village near Dehradun called Sailakin. In 1991 she did her Montessori training in Chennai. After that she had been working with the young children using the Montessori way of life. In 2003 she started her own Montessori School called Bambino Montessori House of children. In 2009 she joined Dr. Sunita Gandhi’s school City international School. Since then she have been involved in Teacher Training and developing the material for Pre-Primary children for the Nurture Program. It is her desire to see a change in the way we look at small children and have many people working with children follow the Montessori way of Life. |
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Prof Harikesh Singh Mr Harikesh Singh has a total experience of 34 years in the field of education. He is the Professor, Faculty of Education, B.H.U. He has more than 110 papers / articles / book reviews to his credit. He has served as the Head and Dean, Faculty of Education, B.H.U. for a couple of years. He has visited various countries like Italy, U.K. etc. to attend conferences / seminars / workshops for the cause of education. He has been awarded the UGC Career Award for three years from 1987 to 1990. |
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Dr Sandhya Singh Dr. Sandhya Singh has a total of 22 years of experience in the areas of Hindi language and literature. Before joining N.C.E.R.T, she was a lecturer and reader in B.H.U affiliated Vasanta College for Women (Varanasi) for over 14 years. She joined N.C.E.R.T in the year 2002 and since then she has been working in the areas of curriculum, syllabus and textbook development, evaluation, training, research and consultancy. She has published 2 books on Hindi literature. She has also published and presented 40 papers nationally and has attended several national seminars on issues like hindi literature and languages, multilingual education, problems of learning among tribal children ,issues in assessment, issues of reading etc. She was the co-ordinator of the national seminar "Premchand,bachche aur shiksha" and the national symposium "Samajh ka maadhyam" which focused on how the gap between home language and school language can be reduced. |
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Ms Grace Musumeci Educationist Australia, Mahatma Gandhi’s Sevagram Ashram The Asha Mahatma Gandhi Project was started in June 2006 to serve the poorest young children in rural areas of India. The first Casa opened at the Gandhi Ashram with 20 children ages 2.6 to 3 years old. Another 20 students joined the class in 2007, including some with severe disabilities. Grace Musumeci, who founded this program, donates her time to guide the children as well as to train the local women to assist in the classroom. Her hope is to help establish Montessori Casas in rural India, which means providing the basic materials – hopefully for local tradesmen to use as models to make themselves, and to train the local village women to become teachers. As the Ashram is open to the public, some of those who visit from either smaller, more isolated villages in Maharashtra itself, or from other parts of India, request that Grace visit them to help set up a Casa in their village also. In January of 2008 she will go to Bodh Gaya in Bihar, the place where Buddha attained enlightenment, which is one of the most poverty-stricken and violent states in India. A young man who came to the Ashram observed the children and asked for help in setting up a Casa there. Grace sees this as her gift – to be given the opportunity to help the whole village by giving them the best education we know there is to offer. Eventually her hope is that there will be little Montessori Casas dotted all around India. In order to see this vision realized, donations are needed to provide training and materials. Your help would be much appreciated in helping these children who have so many obstacles to their development. When Ghandi was alive he began ‘Nai Talim’ meaning ‘New Education’ which rings so consonantly with Dr. Montessori’s ideas of educational reform. |
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Dr Amitabh Pandit Founder Member Of Saidas Healing Foundation Dr. Amitabh Pandit Nd (Ind), Dy, B Camp (Usa) Founder Member Of Saidas Hearing Foundation. The Foundation Works In The Field Of Education By Using The Advanced Orthomolecular Science To Design Nutritional Programs For Students Of All Ages. These Nutritional Programs Incorporate The Goals Of Every Student, Parent And Educator-That Is To Improve Academic Results As Well As Performance In Physical Activities Like Sports, Music And Dance. The Foundation Has Set Up A Bench Mark Goal Oriented Program For Classes X And Xii Boards For Icse And Isc Which Is Now Running In Its 3rd Year. |
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Ms Manjula Jhunjhunwala |
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Mr Steve Rudolf Education Expert Steven Rudolph is an American educationist, researcher, TV personality and public speaker based in India . In 1994, he introduced the Internet to Indian schools and followed it up with the first series of constructivist computer textbooks for Indian children. As Educational Director of Jiva Institute and founder of Jiva Public School , he has developed many innovative learning materials for students to help them realise their potential. He is the proponent of a novel concept in education called “Multiple Natures” that is used to help individuals identify careers that are compatible with their personality types. Rudolph is a popular face on TV, notable for his show Discover Your Child, on the Care World Channel and Zee Jaagran, where he addresses parenting issues. He is also widely known for his unique life-skills workshops that have been attended by thousands of children, parents, and teachers throughout the country. Rudolph has served as a consultant to the World Bank, Unesco, the Department of Human Resource Development (Government of India), the NCERT, the CBSE, the ICSE, and companies including Apple Computer, Microsoft, Intel, HP and Wipro. He holds a masters degree in Education from Temple University. |
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