Mrs. Avnita Bir

Mrs. Avnita Bir, Principal, R.N.Podar School, Mumbai (since March 2003) is a recipient of the very prestigious National Award for Teachers 2009, having been conferred the award by the Honorable President of India. She has also received the EQFI India Education Awards 2008 for Excellence in Education from the Education Quality Foundation of India and Educomp.

She is a post graduate in Economics from the prestigious Delhi School of Economics. She graduated from Lady Shri Ram College and has got a degree in education from Central Institute of Education, Delhi. She has also qualified the UGC (Net) Examination for Lectureship in Economics.

Besides her academic qualifications, she has made a conscious effort to upgrade her knowledge and skills through professional development programs on Leadership at IIM-Ahmedabad and Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Her dedication to the cause of good education propelled her to author two books on Economics in her early years in the profession and she was appointed to give special coaching in Economics to the children of the late Prime Minister, Mr. Rajiv Gandhi.

My views about Early childhood India.

Given that in India we focus so much on educational content and the vastness of it, I feel that in early childhood years, both teachers and parents should spend more time on observing the natural learning styles of their children and using those for educating them rather than using a 'one size fits all' approach. As such, I am not in favor of a structured approach.