Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan, Her Excellency Hon’ble Lieutenant Governor, Puducherry (U.T), launched Sri Aurobindo Society’s education initiatives – ZIIEI Innovations Handbooks, Project Inclusion and Auro Scholarships Programme in Puducherry (U.T). The launch and teachers’ felicitation ceremony in Puducherry is a step towards creating NEP-ready role-model schools in all parts of the country. Sri Aurobindo Society organised the event in collaboration with the Puducherry Department of Education at Society House, Sri Aurobindo Society, Puducherry (U.T). 

ZIIEI Innovations Handbooks are a compilation of zero investment-based innovative teaching ideas of the school teachers from Puducherry (U.T). During the event, the honourable Lt. Governor launched the two editions of the Puducherry Innovations Handbooks. Project Inclusion, also launched during the event, is an initiative of Sri Aurobindo Society that is working toward creating an inclusive learning environment in schools. Auro Scholarships Programme, the world’s first monthly micro scholarship for school students, was also launched during the event. Auro Scholarships Programme inspires students to become life-long learners. Around 100 teachers from all the three programmes of Sri Aurobindo Society were also felicitated at the event.

Addressing the audience and media persons present at the event, Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan, Her Excellency Hon’ble Lieutenant Governor, Puducherry (U. T), emphasised the need to equip, empower and acknowledge the teachers to upgrade the education sector of the country. Motivating the teachers with her inspiring words, the honourable governor said, “It is the teachers who shape every student’s career. It is because of my teachers that I stand where I am today. I salute them for their efforts and the education they provide us.” 

Praising Sri Aurobindo Society’s Rupantar programme and its initiatives, Dr. Soundararajan, the honourable Lt. Governor, said “I congratulate Sri Aurobindo Society for this commendable work of acknowledging teachers’ contribution in the education sector. The initiatives like ZIIEI (Zero Investment Innovations for Education Initiatives), Project Inclusion and Auro Scholarships Programme are the need of the hour. Each one of these will go a long way in transforming education.”

During the event, Dr. Simmi Mahajan, Head – Project Inclusion briefed all about the progress of Rupantar programme of Sri Aurobindo Society and its role in transforming education. Talking about the role of the teachers and the various programmes, she said, “Sri Aurobindo Society believes that teachers are the most important and one of the strongest pillars of this nation and hence it recognises and appreciates their innovative teaching ideas, their efforts in providing joyful and experiential teaching to their students. Over the years, we have been equipping the teachers via our various programmes to support students in their holistic development. Programmes like Project Inclusion are focused towards equipping the teachers to identify and provide adequate support to students with learning difficulties.” She also applauded and thanked the teachers and education officers for their constant support and cooperation towards the programmes of Sri Aurobindo Society.

The event was also graced by Sri P. T. Rudra Goud, Director of School Education, Puducherry and Mr Dinakar N, State Project Director, Samagra Shiksha, other education officers from the Department of Education, Puducherry (U.T) and Shri. Pradeep Narang, Chairman, Sri Aurobindo Society. 

‘Creating NEP-ready role-model schools’

Sri Aurobindo Society’s Role Model School affiliation is a movement to create an ecosystem where everyone works together in synergy to harness the power of the people and the existing resources. ZIIEI’ Role model schools will be ‘NEP ready’ schools which will add tangible values to the existing education system and will become centre of excellence to transform the education in their localities/districts/blocks/states. The teachers are being oriented on different modules of Innovative Pathshaala, which is a compilation of various experiential and project-based innovative pedagogies.

ZIIEI

Zero-Investment Innovations for Education Initiatives (ZIIEI) has come a long way from its inception. The project is a mass-scale teacher outreach initiative started in 2015 by Sri Aurobindo Society and HDFC Bank. To date, around 2 million teachers have been oriented towards ZIIEI across 30 states and Union Territories of India. ZIIEI aims to find ‘the scattered, isolated and unrecognised, but effective solutions’ created by teachers at the grassroots and systematically scale them up to lakhs of schools every year.

Project Inclusion

Project Inclusion programme addresses the issue of an extreme shortage of special educators in government schools. It equips and empowers the teachers to identify and support students with learning difficulties and focuses on Specific Learning Disability, Intellectual Disability, Autism Spectrum Disorder and other learning difficulties.

Auro Scholarships Programme

Auro Scholarships Programme – one of its kind monthly micro-scholarship programme has benefited the students of different states in India. This scholarship for school students of classes 1-12 encourages them to learn and earn up to 1,000 Rupees scholarships per month by attempting quizzes on the Auro Scholar App.