Dear Colleagues,
As we end this year of 2007 - 2008 I am very optimistic about BASE. I think our activities are looking more inspiring than they did some time back. There was a time in the life of BASE when, Mrs. Gangadharan and her team ran BASE like a well oiled machine and made activities of BASE an important part of school academic calendar. Since her passing away almost a decade ago, BASE activities had severely suffered despite our best efforts. The blame of course goes to the Chairman, but many parameters had conspired against BASE activities. One major factor was that our ability to attract teacher participation at planning and organisational level had seriously declined due to loss of contacts with a lot of teachers. The school funding situation had become precarious for many schools due to declining state support and their inability to generate resources from other sources. After several lean years and gradually increasing activities, I am now happy to report that our efforts to rebuild the teacher network that is essential for BASE is now beginning to show results and more and more teachers are beginning to participate in its programmes. While I would love to take credit for this optimistic outlook, in reality the credit should go to other members of the executive committee.
I must say that we have been encouraged by several School Principals who have felt that BASE activities should not only continue but expand and they, along with several teachers are now actively involved with BASE, giving us new ideas and creating new activities. Several new schools and teachers have also joined cause with BASE making it as vibrant as it should be. I am particularly thankful to Dr. Vijayam Ravi of Singhania School, Ms. Sushma Dhumal of Vishwajyot High School, Ms. Sheela Mallya of Children's Academy, Malad and their respective managements for their confidence in BASE and their enthusiasm for making BASE relevant to the school teachers once more.
This is apart of course from Principal Darji, now Principal Kantini Kamat and so many of my dear friends in BASE who have kept BASE running through these difficult times. I must not forget the support and hard work of old time BASE members, like Ms. Rodha Master, Zohar Attari (who, with me are the only continuing members of executive committee from 1988!), Deepak More, Sugandha Shetye, Leena Rao, and so many of my other friends, apart from Paresh Joshi and Nandagopal of TIFR who have all given their utmost to keep the organisation going through its toughest periods. On the other hand, the rooting of BASE in TIFR is also opening up new frontiers of activities. With expanding goodwill, we have also been able to expand the scope and reach of our activities. This happy combination of events can only auger well for BASE. BASE activities should once more become an important landmark in the academic calendar of Mumbai schools.
Last year, we had decided that the venues of the three workshops will now form a triangle - Eastern Suburb of Thane, Western Suburb of Ville Parle and South Mumbai. This means that no matter where you stay, one workshop will be close you, at least by Mumbai's standards. This has now become possible due to generous support of the schools in these areas and the continuing support of Nehru Science Centre. The STEP programme too now has one session teacher presentation that will give teachers an opportunity to discuss their own initiative in the environment of other similarly committed teachers.
The present year 2007 - 2008 has been a year of regular activities for BASE as well as a redesign of our activities. We have maintained the routine of three workshops and a symposium as well as the STEP programme, which has now begun to show its true promise and more and more teachers have begun to take advantage of the programme. However, we are sorely disappointed that the teacher presentation this year had to be cancelled due to insufficient participation by other teachers. We request school teachers to attend these presentations and encourage our colleagues.
During 2007 - 2008, we held the three workshops on the following topics.
All the three workshops were well attended and the teacher feedback has also been very encouraging. The first workshop was hosted by the Singhania School and met with an overwhelming response. The second workshop, held in Children's Academy, Malad also met with an excellent response. The third workshop was organised with the help of the Tata Memorial Hospital and Nehru Science Centre and included a visit to the Tata Memorial Hospital. I must acknowledge the efforts put in by Dr. Paresh Joshi in organising these workshops.
The Symposium this year was on Astronomy. Even though inclement weather forced a change of dates from October to November, the symposium elicited a good response. It was held at the site of Khagol Mandal at Wangni on November 3--4. The programme involved lectures and night sky observation sessions and was widely appreciated.
We conducted our first teacher training programme in syllabus teaching this year. A special three-day workshop on "Teaching Physics" was held at HBCSE during 24—26 August 2007. In this workshop, topics from physics syllabi as laid out by the SSC, ICSE and CBSE boards were dealt with in great detail. In particular, the following aspects were covered in the workshop: Content and concepts. Application of concepts to daily life. What are good questions in various topics? Practical and demonstrations in various topics. Problems and problem solving. Planning of experiments. Misconceptions and outdated concepts.
The STEP programme has also matured and we had a series of excellent interaction sessions between teachers and researchers. Practically single-handedly, Dr. Joshi has made the STEP programme a success.
I am happy to say that we have a good programme proposed for the year 2008 - 09 and we hope that you will participate in it enthusiastically.
Financially, this has been a stable year and we have increased our corpus by several thousand rupees. But I will let our Treasurer Dr. Paresh Joshi to report the accounts to you.
In view of our excellent record in science education at school level and our experience with school education, I am happy to say that HBCSE requested us to organise the National Camp for Junior Science Olympiad. We were invited to organise a 3 week long Indian National Junior Science Olympiad training camp for about 35 nationally selected students. This also opened up new avenues for us. This has been, by far, one of the most challenging task taken up by BASE in recent times and I am happy to say that Paresh, Zohar, Deepak Bhatia and Deepak More took up the challenge and with support from Sugandha, Leena, Atul Mody and other BASE members completed the Junior Science Olympiad National Camp with great competence. We are now getting ready to send this team to International Junior Science Olympiad, where I am sure our teams will do well. As we therefore complete 36th year it is good to take stock of what lies in future for us.
BASE has now once again invigorated with new activities and plans. Even as we continue with our regular programmes we should be aware of coming challenges. While we continue with our workshops, Symposia and STEP programmes, we have to now provide teachers with the necessary wherewithal to teach ever changing syllabi to highly informed but poorly educated students coming from information and financially rich backgrounds. While we have done teacher training programme in Physics last year and we are taking Chemistry this year, teacher training is also needed in non conventional fields such as computers and environmental science etc. We must also ensure that we send truly world class teams to Junior Science Olympiad and offer our assistance to other Olympiads also. I am sure that BASE is headed for exciting and challenging times ahead.
As BASE Chairman, I must put on record, my appreciation to the Homi Bhabha Memorial Science Teachers' Library and especially Shilpa and Abhijeet for the warm and helpful participation in BASE programmes. I also want to thank Mr. Manekar of the Nehru Science Centre who has been a source of great inspiration and support to us. My thanks must also go to all the members of the Executive Committee, but I would like to make a special mention of Dr. Paresh Joshi, Mr. Deepak Bhatia, Mr. Deepak More and Mr. Zohar Attari, who have been vigorously bringing BASE activities to you and computerising the various procedures. All other members have also been equally dedicated to the task of improving communication between scientists and science teachers and I remain grateful to them. With these few words I would like to conclude by expressing my gratitude to all the teachers and schools that have participated in BASE activities and made our programmes possible.
Thank you.
Mayank N Vahia,
Chairman
21 June 2008