Parindey: Rahul Aggarwal & Riddhi Aggarwal
Alivelihood: Facilitators & Educators
Region: Aashiana, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh
Rahul and Riddhi are founders of Swatantra Talim, a non-profit organisation working in the field of alternative education in Lucknow. The couple shows versatility in their work, by being facilitators, storytellers, puppeteers, and more. But they primarily identify themselves as educators.
Belonging to educated and service-oriented middle-class families, both Rahul and Ridhi initially pursued careers in line with societal norms. Rahul is a Chartered Accountant by profession and Riddhi is an MBA graduate. They got married in the year 2007 and were both leading their careers in the corporate sector in Delhi. However, her dissatisfaction with the corporate sector started growing for Riddhi, and she started volunteering with NGOs like the Manzil, New Delhi in the year 2009 and later in Nalanda, Lucknow, and found joy in doing so. Gradually Rahul joined her in these experiences of engaging in child education.
To further her work in education, Riddhi continued her education by pursuing a postgraduate degree in Commerce in 2011 and then in Education from Tata Institute of Social Sciences in 2013. During her education and as a result of her understanding after working with NGOs Riddhi started questioning education and wanted to be more than just a school teacher. Their exploration started by taking further education, learning about different education philosophies, volunteering, and connecting with various people in the field.
During one such experience when Rahul accompanied Riddhi to Ramdwari, a village near Lucknow, he interacted with the kids there. He noticed that the kids had dreams and aspirations, but no one was bothered about these dreams. So they started pondering about these children, their dreams, their circumstances, and what could be done about it. And they decided to quit the Corporate sector forever. And thus, the seed of Swatantra Talim was sown.
“It was a striking point, that children had aspirations even after knowing that their reality is different.” - Riddhi
But the question remained, what should be done? And how to bring a more impactful education to these children? So, to better understand alternative education models and its processes, they started working with the Sahyadri School of Krishnamurti Foundation in Pune. After a year of experience, they decided to start Swatantra Talim in the year 2013 in Lucknow.
However, there were difficulties regarding the family pressure to continue their jobs, financial challenges, etc. But the major thing was designing operational processes and pedagogy.
“In Alternative education, everyone has a different method, it does not have a structure and that is why these are alternatives to the mainstream.” -Riddhi
At Swatantra Talim, Rahul and Riddhi use a unique mix of story-based, toy-based, and maker-centered learning as a pedagogy. The storytellers use puppet shows to develop language and vocabulary in children and also for thought-provoking. The toy, game, or puzzle-based activities intend to initiate mathematical thinking and problem-solving in the kids. The making of tinkering activities gives a practical experience to the children and helps develop their social-emotional engagement, creative risk-taking, and conceptual thinking.
The major day-to-day operations of the organisation are taken care of by young leaders. Swatatra Talim has a core team of 13 young adults who engage in every stage of the process from designing to execution. It is a beautiful dynamic in which children are the students and children are the facilitators or the puppeteers.
Rahul feels that in the current education, students are mostly working with recall value where they recall a formula to get a correct answer. But art, having no correct or incorrect answer, makes people think, create, and build newer perspectives. Thus, most of their work aims to develop the thinking, cognition, perspective building, and questioning of the children. He feels that, once children can build their perspective and the ability to share their perspective, then only they will use their minds.
Swatantra Talim mainly runs four programs, Khoj Yaan, Khoj Shala, Design Studio, and S-Shakt. Khoj Yaan is their flagship program for the students of Government schools. The students are from 1st to 5th class and are engaged in learning using this unique pedagogy. They are presently working with 13 Government schools in Lucknow. Khoj Shala is their pioneer program of operating learning centres in villages. Their first centre was started in a village named Ramdwari near Lucknow with girl students which was later extended for boys as well. Currently, they have two centres in Ramdwari and Malsaraya villages. Here the focus is on helping children learn using the resources and knowledge from their local or immediate environment, hence promoting regional skills and wisdom.
D-Studio is an entrepreneurial teaching program for kids over 10th class. S-Shakt is a Teachers’ training program, where they share their pedagogy with teachers at other schools, NGOs, etc. Swatantra is also working on a 1-year long program ‘Children as Citizens’ with a school to develop responsible thinking and initiative-taking in children using art and storytelling. They organised Lucknow's first-ever children's cultural festival named 'Bulbule Festival' and conducted various workshops and programs for children.
In due course of time, there has been a visible impact of Rahul and Riddhi’s decade-long efforts. With exposure to these centres and learnings, the local communities that previously used to stop children's education by the 8th class are now sending their communities for secondary and higher education. And also the children are having an enhancement in skillset and change in mindset. Kids are now taking ownership of the family and societal challenges, making decisions for themselves, and addressing their literary and banking needs. This is what brings joy and satisfaction to Rahul and Riddhi.
“It gives me a sense of pride that my students are now empowered to question the wrong.” -Rahul
Swatantra Talim works on 3 core values, questioning, decision-making, and 360-degree perspective building. Ridhhi and Rahul feel that whatever career or livelihood a child wants to choose should be their own choice and not the choice of their families, society, or any other external factor. But in the mainstream education or school education system, kids are not being trained to do decision-making for themselves. This results in dilemmas and wrong decisions in life. Children’s wisdom is being underestimated and hindered by us by limiting their exposure and doubting their potential. Decision-making is marked as a job for adults. Every individual should have the opportunity to explore the entire platter of options and make the decision. They want to make the child capable of making decisions. Swatantra Talim is a space where children learn to ask questions and make decisions for themselves and others. This is what Swatantra means to Rahul and Riddhi, freedom to make decisions.
Rahul and Riddhi can be reached at: