Laximarayan Nayak is out of retirement
By Makena Naegele, Director of Growth at Shikhya
Mr. Nayak retired in 2012 as a senior IAS officer after serving for 35 years, in the state government, but after meeting Biswajit, co-founder of Shikhya in 2016, is now operating over 5 learning centers in conjunction with Shikhya serving over 220 kids and counting.
The first center at “Kanika Reading Room” was launched in late 2016. It has seen reasonable success with over 110 kids and empowered young facilitators and empowered young facilitators such as Amita Samal who help run the center for 3 years.
To be clear, Mr. Nayak didn’t just come out of retirement, he came blazing out of retirement in full force. After retirement he was recalled by the state government and led Odisha State Council for Child Welfare as its Honorary Secretary. The Council had six orphanages where children in need of care and protection were being groomed. These were branches of Utkal Balashram, basically a Child Care Institution (CCI). Mr. Nayak had registered a Trust in the loving memory of his parents in the name of Malati Devi Bamadeb Memorial Trust (MDBM Trust) and through this Trust he set up three shikhya learning centers at Balasore, Cuttack and Nawarangpur branches of Utkal Balashrm. It was a matter of great satisfaction when one boy viz. Jyoti Prakash Das was selected for admission into Jawahar Navodya Vidyalaya, Bagudi.
Mr. Nayak’s life work reflects how deeply he cares for India’s current state of education and desire to rapidly improve it. Primary education is still substantially lacking in India. He shares over a call that “many children are deprived of education”, moreover it is “hard to match kids to merit” due to lack of quality of education.
Shikhya has been transformative in making subjects like math and science accessible and engaging to these children deprived of a quality education. Shikhya’s low cost tech based solution can be implemented in any rural community and have been with Mr. Nayak’s help. In one case in 2016, out of the 12 children using the tablets 40–45 days for 80–90 hours over the course of one year, one student qualified for the JNV Selection test, a test that if passed guarantees the student free education provided by the government through grade 12.
In the second year, 2017, in another group of 12 students, 2 girls were selected for the JNV. In 2018, out of 14 children, 2 boys were selected. Mr. Nayak’s excitement picks up in his voice as he shares the incredible results of Shikhya’s platform in such a short amount of time. The results speak for themselves: Shikhya’s content enforced by motivating facilitators is helping these children open their lives up to greater opportunities that they didn’t even know were possible.
He reflects on one “small” part of his job from when he worked as an Administrative Officer- overseeing 6 government run orphanages. This role Mr. Nayak had seems to have proved instrumental in ingraining in him the desire to make sure all children have proper care and protection. These are children with just a single parent, if that. They lack somebody to take care of them, motivate them, and get them out of the dimly lit situation they are living in. How do you solve such complex issues? It became clear when conversing with Mr. Nayak that education is the solution to many complex issues like poverty, inequality, and lack of care. “Education” he says, “will take care of everything in their lives”.
At the moment, Mr. Nayak is funding his ambitious plan to cover the entire block with funds from trustees. Money is crucial he says so that facilitators are well compensated. Facilitators are the key to the operation, assisting students with usage of the tablets and keeping them inspired to endure any difficulties. Currently there are two newly opened centers in Bhubaneswar, but they still need capital to build presence in the village as he points out most parents in these rural slums lack awareness of the fundamental need to educate their children in their first place. They simply don’t understand the importance of education because most of the parents are not educated themselves. In order to change this, you have to change an ideology, which is why donating computers to a community does not solve the issue of increasing global education. Opening centers requires capital to hire workers on the ground that will empower and spread the word throughout the community of the power of education to change the course of the lives of their children.
Mr. Nayak is meeting with some 20–30 classmates soon to discuss his intention to open up centers in another town that he is launching with his friends. He is utilizing his connections as best he can to grow these centers.
Mr. Nayak’s two children, Chandan and Nimitha, went through the private education system in India and went abroad to Singapore and New York respectively to work, have come alongside their father to help give these children the right to education they have been deprived of.
This is not easy work, Mr. Nayak blatantly admits that it is in fact a “very difficult” operation. While giving a child a tablet sounds simple in theory and is in itself very inexpensive, the reality is that to be effective in making sure the child actually receives and uses the tablets consistently requires large operational costs such as caring facilitators and people on the ground to gather students in the communities because these learning centers are launched in rural slums where education is a foreign word. Education is a privilege- a long term investment- and these are people that need a dollar right now, which is why parents of children and children themselves see greater returns in hustling on the streets. Shikhya and Mr. Nayak have to work fervently to change this and are doing so.
The goal is to scale optimally and at as fast a rate as possible. From the results, it is undeniable they are on the right path but more manpower is necessary. The power of education is not something that should be taken lightly or overlooked and none of us are inhibited in putting our hand in just as Mr. Nayak does to help.
