Learning and Building Capacities in Education -The Experience of Wipro Education Partners’ Forum

Social Interventions and Capacity Building

Social issues are usually highly complex and interconnected. Often, there are no historical precedents for addressing these challenges; nor are there any contemporary templates for solving them. Even when we figure out how to address a specific issue in a particular context, the factors at work are generally large in number and many of them remain unknown. Thus, ‘off-the-shelf’ solutions are usually inelegant and impracticable. This is especially true of issues related to teaching and learning in particular and those related to education in general.

In such a context, all of us who are active in this sector are intervening in the space in multiple ways and learning through processes of experimentation. Thus, in this journey, constant building of internal capacities of organizations is a given, where we are continuously trying to figure out ways of learning, doing and sharing through one’s own actions and from those of others.

What can be the various modes of capacity building in this context? One of these is of course the set of quotidian processes of action and reflection that all of us engage in. This is a critical and central part of all aspects of learning and capacity building experiences and journeys. But there is often a felt need for more structured opportunities and processes. These often take the form of workshops, training programs, reading groups, mentoring processes, and other similar exercises. In this mix, a forum is an important mode of intervention that allows for a creative mixing and matching of ways of sharing and learning.

We started the Wipro Education Partners’ Forum in 2002, around the same time that we started thinking and intervening in the education space. It was a key fulcrum of our activities then; it remains an important learning space for us even now. That has been the experience and feeling of many of our partners as well. The processes facilitated in the 20th Forum conducted during December 5-7, 2022, provide a point of illustration.

What is a Forum?

The online Oxford Learner’s Dictionary (OLD) defines a ‘forum’ as ‘an event or medium where people can exchange opinions and ideas on a particular issue; a meeting organized for this purpose.’ The third meaning that is listed specifies a ‘forum’ as ‘(in ancient Rome) a public place where meetings were held.’

A forum is then not a conference, which is a large official meeting in which people with similar interests get together to discuss views and have formal discussions. A seminar on the other hand is a gathering that has a more or less academic and pedagogic intent.

Compared to these, the two meanings that we earlier shared of the word ‘forum’ tell us a few things central to the idea and its origins. The first one stems from the third definition that OLD provides. It has to do with the fact that it is a space where people interact. The second aspect is to do with the fact that a forum is a space in which congregations of individuals and collectives can take place. And the objective of such a gathering is to collectively fashion a shared understanding.

Thus, the idea of a forum is more capacious, compared to other kinds of gatherings. As its central focus is the group/collective itself, the mode of deliberations, therefore, need not be defined in a strict manner. The nature of the discussions lends itself to a large amount of flexibility as well.

The Case of Wipro Education Partners’ Forum

From the very origins, Wipro’s interventions in education have tried to go beyond cheque book philanthropy. An important aspect of our work has involved the recognition that interventions in education are long-term and their impact cannot be easily quantified. Therefore, we have always seen our engagement from an ecosystem perspective. A spinoff of this understanding has been a focus on enabling capacities and building communities.

The Wipro Partners’ Forum has tried to be reflective and exploratory in nature, and has attempted to create spaces to consciously bring in diverse perspectives. The aim has also been to facilitate dialogues and discussions, that are both formal and informal. Some of the Forums have had partners presenting their work. Whereas some others have been on specific themes, such as history and education, ecology and education, textbooks, assessment, etc.

Partners’ Forum has thus been crucial to our understanding and practices in the space of education, especially those related to community building. It has usually been a three-day residential meet involving all our school education partners. It is held annually. Over the years, it has fostered mutual learning and sharing, allowed for informal bonding, and facilitated networking to collaborate.

Twenty Years of the Forum

Today Wipro Education Partners’ Network consists of over 150 organizations. These CSOs are at various stages of their organizational journeys. They work across the country on a diversity of educational issues and approaches.

2022 marks twenty years of Partners’ Forum. Its 20th edition involved structured sessions and discussions on topics related to education pertinent to our work and purpose. As this was the first Forum held physically after the COVID-19 pandemic, it helped us reaffirm our bonds with each other.

It has also been the largest Forum till now, with more than 150 CSOs and 300 people participating. Although we had apprehensions that the very size of the Forum this year might potentially lessen its softer, more informal aspects, our experience has belied our pessimism.

Our faith in the importance of a space like this has been renewed. We have learnt that apart from creating a community, the Forum itself is a form of community that renews our faith in collective action for the common good, year after year.

The Forum facilitates meeting on neutral ground, where we share with an openness and in a forthright manner our experiences, learnings and reflections, and our feelings, apprehensions and visions as well.

A sense of bonhomie, comradery, and meeting of the minds permeated the Forum, through informal sharing of tea/coffee and meals, friendships forged over nature walks and collaborations discussed over long strolls. These aspects of living, learning, reflecting and sharing are perhaps all the more needed now, given the pace of our work these days, and the busy-ness of our lives.