On the 16th of August, 2019, the Student Body of Heritage Xperiential Learning School cast its votes for 4 candidates, who they felt were best suited to lead. A couple of weeks later, the members of the advisory were announced and hence came into form, the Students’ Council of 2019-20.
As the ritual demands, the questions of will to implement, transparency, and lessons learned from precedence were floated, and it remained to see how this new Students’ Council looked to act on these. To find out, we sat down with the members, Jai Jindal, Shikhar Jain, Shirin Suri, Yashwardhan Sindhwani, Anushka Bellani, Aadya Sharma, and Kirti Qanongo Ma'am, faculty advisor, Students' Council.
Responses have been edited for brevity
How does the Council plan on bridging the gap between the promises made as part of your campaign, and the implementation that must follow?
Jai Jindal: To bridge the gap, we have already begun the process. There are some projects that we have taken up. One being the sanitary napkins project, about which we have had meetings with Kevin Sir and are trying to approve the budget for the same. Also, we have started with a few changes in cafeteria food, so that there is a greater variety. Additionally, we are looking to share the question papers from previous years to help students practice. The rest of the projects will be taken up one by one so that we can ensure that they are implemented by next year.
Shirin Suri: One of the agendas that we personally felt should have been included, was to have question papers from previous years, that our school has prepared, as they tend to be a little different from what other schools seem to prepare. I myself had a similar struggle in 8th grade. So, we have drafted an email to the Assessment Department and want to see how it goes about. This would help guide the students in a better direction when preparing for exams in the future.
Aadya Sharma: Elaborating on what Jai said, we wanted to work on the suggestions and complaints by the students on the cafeteria food, so, I along with Rampriya Ma’am am working on providing more options for the students.
Let us into the perspective of the Council on what the debate about transparency is about. To what extent can the council allow transparency, and to what extent should the student body expect transparency?
Shikhar Jain: The Council is very open about being transparent with the Student Body, as we feel that any and all information that is relevant for the student body, regarding how the Council is undertaking its procedures, should be disclosed. That is not something we wish to hide, as it is something that we are working on for the student body itself. We also wish to take into account, that agendas should be picked from the proposals of the students themselves, which is why the forms concerned the Yujan themes and logos are sent out to the student body. These are not decisions taken by us, but collectively, by the students.
Anushka Bellani: As far as what they should expect is concerned, I think it should be understood that every single action taken can not be disclosed immediately, especially those that involve budgeting, or higher authorities since we follow a chain of command. So, everything cannot be immediately put across, but the things that we are permitted to be transparent about, we would want to put them across, and we are hoping to do that through this interview.
Aadya Sharma: Just to give an example of the same, we really wanted to keep this process transparent, ever since the election process began. As soon as we were selected based on our Statement of Purpose, the Teacher’s Remarks, and the interview scores, every bit of the election process thereafter was disclosed to the student body, so that everyone could see for themselves, that the Council was being put together based on merit
I appreciate that you’ve all spent only a little over a month in the council and that your journey has just started, but your election is pretty much done with. Any advice you’d want to give your juniors, or the batch that will form the Council next time? Anything from those who had to make a second attempt, perhaps from the members of the advisory?
Aadya Sharma: One thing that I really valued from the election process was that posters acted as a medium for us to communicate our agendas with the students, and not just decorative pieces. Secondly, I do feel that a creative slogan helps a great deal in the election process.
Shikhar Jain: Also, the most important thing is to not come across to the students as someone who they should look up to, but as someone, they can work with. So, you have to be honest and straightforward with the student body and be approachable, so that they can trust you with their vote and responsibilities. I think that it is extremely important to form a kind of camaraderie with fellow students during the election.
Yashwardhan Sindhwani: At the end, we must show the students how we relate with them, and that we face the same problems as they do. That is how the connection is established.
Did the suspension of the campaigning change how you approached the remaining bit of the election?
Anushka Bellani: I think it definitely did in a number of aspects. Firstly, and I think I speak for all of us here, a major misconception we all had was that anything or anyone we were campaigning to, if found responsible for spreading anything negative, wasn’t for us to claim responsibility for. However, after the suspension of the campaigning, all of us came to realize that we were accountable. We were going to be held accountable if elected, and so, it was about time that we took responsibility for what was said in our name. Secondly, the perspective of the posters changed from something that brought us votes for ourselves, to something that puts forward our agendas, and what we looked to change.
Kirti Ma’am: Posters are not about glorifying yourselves in the eyes of the students, but about you putting your agendas before them, and your being elected on that basis, rather than who you are as a person. It’s about what you want to do for the students in the future.
Aadya Sharma: Moving forward after the suspension, we had greater respect for the rules. It wasn’t as though we disregarded them earlier, but we went through them once again so that we weren’t caught unaware again.
Shikhar: The suspension gave us a reality check as to what the gravity of the situation was. I think we all took it in a positive way, as it helped us realize the importance of what was to come.
Any advice/notes you took from the previous council, about what to do, what not to do?
Shirin Suri: We had a medium to interact with them; the induction. That was the time when we had a discussion about how the work for Yujan, a very important event in the school, goes about. They’ve inspired us in many ways, but there are issues to take care of now. We look forward to meeting the bar that they have set or exceed it.
Shikhar Jain: Apart from Yujan, the induction helped us realize how we should go about other procedures, of which we had no idea. What we had done until this point was to campaign, put forth our ideas, and get elected. We didn’t know how to bridge the gap between pitching our ideas and implementation. The previous council knew how to go about these procedures, how to pitch ideas forward, and who are the people that must be approached. The order of getting things done was understood that way.
Have you felt burdened by the precedence set by the council?
Yashwardhan Sindhwani: We don’t feel that there’s any burden as such. They’ve set a really high standard that we look up to and wish to meet, and maybe do even better.
Jai Jindal: We understand the amount of work that they have done, and that motivates us to work as hard, and achieve the same results. The bar they have set is very high, and we wish to carry on their legacy. Hence, their precedence is not a burden, but a motivation.
Any messages/conversations you want to put forth among the student body?
Jai Jindal: A message that we want to put forward, is that we are their council, and it is their opinions, and suggestions that will shape our ideas. We will be putting across some forms through which they can express their views. We want to make sure that they are encouraged to come up with their own ideas and suggestions, and whatever they have in mind for the future. We would love to work on those.
Shirin Suri: The student body should remain participative, and tell us where we go wrong. We shouldn’t be seen as working as an authoritative body but as a team working with them.
Kirti Ma’am: I would want all the students to exercise patience. Of course, we would always want things to happen. For example, the sanitary napkins initiative was on the agenda of the previous council. It’s a process and takes time. There are other things at play here. As much as we would like to deny it, there is a chain of command that needs to be followed. There have been changes in the management, and ideas that the previous management may have agreed to, need to be made more visible to the new one. So, while we are working on these agendas, they do take time. So, I would just want the students to have patience.
Yashwardhan Sindhwani: In the end, I’d just like to say, please wear your I-Card!
Picture credits- Aryaman Joshi
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