an opening message from GEMS founder Sunita Gandhi received in conversations Aug 007:

My vision for the future? I want to see GEMS take over the world! I know its potential to change education as we know it.

It is a complete paradigm shift in education as it is based on a new
Premise of competition with oneself and excellence in all things. The Four Building Blocks of Education, I vision I gave to CMS on which it has moulded its work are the most important building blocks of an education in the 21st century:
Universal Values (spirit “to be” and flow),
Global Understanding (heart “to love”),
Excellence in All Things
and Service to Humanity -“the will to do service”

It has tremendous potential for removing illiteracy from India as well. I have my village based project through an NGO I started as a project in 1992 when visiting India from my World Bank days and feeling guilty I was earning so much and could do more for the
underprivileged children. Today, I am running an experiment for these
children under the GEMS banner which has the potential to change and
rock the world of education for these children too. My article on GEMS has been accepted for inclusion most likely in Educational Leadership, the most widely circulating educational magazine out of ASCD in your neck of the woods. This article on A New Way to Assess with GEMS Dynamic Assessments will be coming out most likely in their December/January issue.

I feel education is an unexplored field. We are not getting the results we seek from it. Its goals are at odds with the needs of the individual and society today. We need to go back to the drawing board and re-examine the ethics on which education is based and the ends to which it is geared.

Education can alone create a better future and harness human potential for its highest personal and social good. To create a new future, we must chart out a new path. If we do not change direction, we are likely to end up where we are headed. If 20th century was the most brutal and murderous in human history as per Kofi Annan just prior to the Millennium Summit, then the future where we are headed is not a comfortable place. Where indeed do we begin a process of change. What will trigger the changes?

Why? I believe a new education is where the process of change will be
Most fundamentally effective. It is also the quickest way to bring about permanent change. GEMS is not about maths or science education or even a new paradigm in assessment, first and foremost, it is a new way to think about education. If we do not ask the right questions, we are not going to get the right answers. What should education in the 21st century look like? What kind of education will bring out human potential to produce its highest and best and its noble nature? Etc…

In 1988, I organised a Roundtable on Education in the 21st Century at
CMS. It explored many of these questions. GEMS is an outcome of years of iterative questioning. You may understand where I am coming from if I confess that I was getting very restless at the World Bank after I noticed how education has become like an old medication with an expired date which has at best an uncertain outcome. With so many new children being enrolled in this day into this old paradigm in education is making sure the past is intact with all its problems – Apartheid in South Africa is no different than economics based apartheid in the US, for example, as children study in different neighbourhood schools because of economics. Where will the process of change begin?

Better Value for All of The Pyramid
My parents school http://cmseducation.org , by educating 31000 children across a city, shows that quality education for all – we are in the league table of India’s top 10 schools on a cost/resources base that some of those other nig city schools use to educate hundreds.