Ajay Piramal Foundation to support 100 Rajasthan schools

Mumbai, Aug 26 (UNI) The Ajay Piramal Foundation will support 100 rural government schools in Rajasthan to improve learning quality among the children.

The 100 schools will be chosen from Churu and Jhunjhunu -- the home district of the Piramals. The three-year long programme named QUILT -- Quality Improvement through Leadership Transformation -- aimed to transform the 100 chosen schools into model schools. A MoU in this regard was signed between the Rajasthan government and the Ajay Piramal Foundation in Jaipur on August 22.

The programme is aimed to improve the leadership abilities of the Principal, as the leadership capability at the school level is often the key constraint in creating meaningful change. The Headmasters of these schools will undergo classroom training for 20 days in a year, which will be supplemented by continuous in-school support. These classroom workshops will train the Principals in various aspects of school management like Personal leadership, Institutional Leadership, Instructional Leadership and Social Leadership.

While most of the trainings given to principals are teacher trainings dealing with classroom processes and pedagogy, the Principals actually play much more of a managerial role in the school. This programme will provide more role-specific trainings to the Principals.

The Ajay Piramal Foundation has instituted 'Gandhi Fellowship' as a part of this initiative: young graduates from the best colleges of the country will serve in these 100 schools. Though the work profile of Gandhi Fellows involves working in extreme conditions of rural Rajasthan, the fellowship generated tremendous interest among the students of Delhi, where it was first marketed.

More than 250 applications were received from the best colleges of Delhi, including Hindu College, Miranda House, Jesus and Mary, JNU and Jamia Millia. A batch of 11 youths was selected as Gandhi Fellows after a rigorous selection procedure to test their ability and attitude towards working in such conditions.

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