So we all have our own biases.
我们对很多事情都有自己的偏见。
For example, some of us tend to think that it's very difficult to transform failing government systems.
例如，我们可能会认为要改革腐朽的政府机构是很难的。
When we think of government systems, we tend to think that they're archaic, set in their ways,
当我们聊到政府机构时，我们会觉得肯定是腐朽的、顽固的，
and perhaps, the leadership is just too bureaucratic to be able to change things.
而且领导层都非常的官僚主义，拒绝可能的革新。
Well, today, I want to challenge that theory.
那么今天，我会尝试挑战下这个观点。
I want to tell you a story of a very large government system that has not only put itself on the path of reform
我的故事是关于一个非常大的政府机构，这个机构不仅积极的进行改革，
but has also shown fairly spectacular results in less than three years.
而且改革仅仅三年时间就已经取得了非常不错的效果。
This is what a classroom in a public school in India looks like.
这是印度的公立小学的常见景象。
There are 1 million such schools in India.
印度有一百万公立学校。
And even for me, who's lived in India all her life, walking into one of these schools is fairly heartbreaking.
即使像我这样在印度土生土长的人，走进这样的学校依然会让我觉得心碎。
By the time kids are 11, 50 percent of them have fallen so far behind in their education that they have no hope to recover.
这些孩子在11岁的时候，有差不多一半的人在学习上掉队严重，严重到很难赶上。
11-year-olds cannot do simple addition, they cannot construct a grammatically correct sentence.
到了十一岁还无法做简单的加法，无法拼写出语法正确的句子。
These are things that you and I would expect an 8-year-old to be able to do.
而这些都是你我会预期一个八岁的孩子就应该会的。
By the time kids are 13 or 14, they tend to drop out of schools.
在他们13或14岁的时候，他们很可能会退学。
In India, public schools not only offer free education
在印度，公立学校不仅提供免费教育
they offer free textbooks, free workbooks, free meals, sometimes even cash scholarships.
还提供免费教材，免费作业本，免费午餐，有时候甚至提供奖学金。
And yet, 40 percent of the parents today are choosing to pull their children out of public schools
即便如此，如今多达四成的家长依然选择将他们的孩子从公立学校
and pay out of their pockets to put them in private schools.
转去需要自掏腰包的私立学校。
As a comparison, in a far richer country, the US, that number is only 10 percent.
而比印度富裕得多的美国，这个比例只有一成而已。
That's a huge statement on how broken the Indian public education system is.
这个数字印证了印度的公共教育系统现在有多糟糕。
So it was with that background that I got a call in the summer of 2013 from an absolutely brilliant lady called Surina Rajan.
正是在这样的大环境下，2013年的夏天，我接到了一位非常睿智的女士的电话，她叫Surina Rajan。
She was, at that time, the head of the Department of School Education in a state called Haryana in India.
她当时是印度Haryana省基础教育厅的厅长。
So she said to us, "Look, I've been heading this department for the last two years.
她告诉我，“你看，我已经领导这个部门有两年时间了。
I've tried a number of things, and nothing seems to work. Can you possibly help?"
我尝试了很多方法，都没有效果。你看看能否帮上忙？”
Let me describe Haryana a little bit to you.
让我先简单介绍下Haryana省的情况。
Haryana is a state which has 30 million people.
Haryana省有约三千万人口，
It has 15,000 public schools and 2 million plus children in those public schools.
有一万五千所公立学校，为超过两百万孩子提供教育。
So basically, with that phone call,
简单地说，在那通电话里，
I promised to help a state and system which was as large as that of Peru or Canada transform itself.
我答应要帮助这个省的教育系统进行改革，改革的规模跟整个秘鲁或加拿大的差不多。
As I started this project, I was very painfully aware of two things.
当我开始着手干的时候，我很快发现两件让人沮丧的事实。
One, that I had never done anything like this before.
首先，我从来没有处理这类问题的经验。
And two, many others had, perhaps without too much success.
其次, 其他人的尝试也大多以失败告终。
As my colleagues and I looked across the country and across the world,
我和同事把印度全国调研了个遍，然后放眼全球，
we couldn't find another example that we could just pick up and replicate in Haryana.
也没有找到任何样板能够直接拿过来套用在Haryana省上。
We knew that we had to craft our own journey.
我们意识到需要自己走出一条路。
But anyway, we jumped right in and as we jumped in, all sorts of ideas started flying at us.
不管怎样，我们决定开始动手干，一下子我们就想到了很多点子。
People said, "Let's change the way we recruit teachers,
有人说，“我们对聘请教师进行改革，
let's hire new principals and train them and send them on international learning tours, let's put technology inside classrooms."
应该聘请新校长并且训练他们，把他们都送到国外进行培训，还要引入现代化的教学设备。”
By the end of week one, we had 50 ideas on the table, all amazing, all sounded right.
一个星期下来我们就收集了超过五十个想法，看起来都非常不错。
There was no way we were going to be able to implement 50 things.
但是我们显然不可能同时做50件事情。
So I said, "Hang on, stop. Let's first at least decide what is it we're trying to achieve."
所以我说，“等下，先等下。至少让我们先定一个目标再说。”
So with a lot of push and pull and debate, Haryana set itself a goal which said:
经过来来回回的讨论和争辩，Haryana省的教育改革目标定了下来：
by 2020, we want 80 percent of our children to be at grade-level knowledge.
到2020年，超过80%的学生能按时升入下一年级。
Now the specifics of the goal don't matter here, but what matters is how specific the goal is.
这个目标的具体内容并不是重点，重点是这个目标为我们指明了方向。
Because it really allowed us to take all those ideas which were being thrown at us and say which ones we were going to implement.
现在这个目标为我们确定了一个标准，让我们在面对各种新点子的时候有了一个明确的筛选标准。
Does this idea support this goal? If yes, let's keep it.
这个点子对于我们的目标有帮助吗？如果有，我们就继续往下做。
But if it doesn't or we're not sure, then let's put it aside. As simple as it sounds,
如果不能或者我们不确定，就先把这个想法放到一边。这个听起来非常简单的做法，
having a very specific goal right up front has really allowed us to be very sharp and focused in our transformation journey.
让我们能够目标明确，在教育改革的道路上保持专注和敏捷。
And looking back over the last two and a half years, that has been a huge positive for us.
两年半之后回头看当时的决定，对我们帮助是巨大的。
So we had the goal, and now we needed to figure out what are the issues, what is broken.
有了目标之后，现在就需要找到问题所在，追本溯源。
Before we went into schools, a lot of people told us that education quality is poor
在我们去学校实地考察之前，很多人告诉我们基础教育之所以糟糕，
because either the teachers are lazy, they don't come into schools, or they're incapable, they actually don't know how to teach.
要么是因为教师们的懒惰，他们时常缺勤不来学校，要么是教师无能，不具备授课的技能。
Well, when we went inside schools, we found something completely different.
但是当我们在学校实地调研的时候，发现完全不是这样。
On most days, most teachers were actually inside schools.
绝大多数老师在上班时间都是出勤的。
And when you spoke with them, you realized they were perfectly capable of teaching elementary classes.
我们通过与老师们的交谈，发现他们完全有能力教小学课程。
But they were not teaching.
问题是他们的时间没花在上课上。
I went to a school where the teachers were getting the construction of a classroom and a toilet supervised.
我去的一所学校，里面的老师在忙着监督盖教室和厕所设施。
I went to another school where two of the teachers had gone to a nearby bank branch to deposit scholarship money into kids' accounts.
我去的另一所学校，两个老师需要跑到附近的银行柜台，一个一个的把奖学金存到学生的账户里去。
At lunchtime, most teachers were spending all of their time getting the midday meal cooking, supervised and served to the students.
午饭的时候, 基本上所有的老师都动员起来参与或监督午饭的准备和分发，为学生服务。
So we asked the teachers, "What's going on, why are you not teaching?"
于是我们问这些老师，“这是怎么了，为什么你们都不去教课?”
And they said, "This is what's expected of us.
他们回答，“因为这就是我们被要求做的呀。
When a supervisor comes to visit us, these are exactly the things that he checks.
当教委领导来我们这里视察的时候，这些就是他们检查的内容。
Has the toilet been made, has the meal been served.
厕所有没有建好，午饭供应是否正常。
When my principal goes to a meeting at headquarters, these are exactly the things which are discussed."
当我们的校长去首都开会的时候，他们讨论的也都是这些事情。”
You see, what had happened was, over the last two decades, India had been fighting the challenge of access,
你看，实际上在过去二十年间，印度为了让学生入学做了很多，
having enough schools, and enrollment, bringing children into the schools.
建立了足够的学校，并且努力地让适龄儿童进入学校读书。
So the government launched a whole host of programs to address these challenges,
政府发起了一系列项目来保证中小学入学率，
and the teachers became the implicit executors of these programs. Not explicitly, but implicitly.
而老师们变成了这些项目实际上的执行人员。虽然没有明确要求，但是他们就是实际的执行者。
And now, what was actually needed was not to actually train teachers further or to monitor their attendance
现在我们真正需要的，不是培训这些老师，也不是监督他们出勤，
but to tell them that what is most important is for them to go back inside classrooms and teach.
而是告诉他们，相比刚才说的那些事情，回到教室上课才是他们最重要的任务。
They needed to be monitored and measured and awarded on the quality of teaching and not on all sorts of other things.
我们应该以课堂教学的质量来跟踪、评价和奖励老师，而不是用别的事情来考核他们。
So as we went through the education system, as we delved into it deeper,
当我们对教育体系有了更深入的了解之后，
we found a few such core root causes which were determining, which were shaping how people behaved in the system.
我们找到了一些问题的根源所在，这些根源决定着教育系统中老师和其他人的行为。
And we realized that unless we change those specific things, we could do a number of other things.
我们意识到除非我们解决了这些根源上的问题，否则我们可以做的其它的改革措施。
We could train, we could put technology into schools, but the system wouldn't change.
例如教师培训、引入新技术，都不会起到真正的改善作用。
And addressing these non-obvious core issues became a key part of the program.
于是处理这些隐藏在背后的核心问题成为改革项目的重中之重。
So, we had the goal and we had the issues, and now we needed to figure out what the solutions were.
现在我们已经设定好了目标，也找到了问题根源，现在就差解决方案了。
We obviously did not want to recreate the wheel, so we said, "Let's look around and see what we can find."
我们不希望闭门造车，相反地，我们决定“尽量从他人现有的经验中学习。”
And we found these beautiful, small pilot experiments all over the country and all over the world.
我们也确实在印度和世界范围内找到了一些成功案例，规模不大，但效果非常好。
Small things being done by NGOs, being done by foundations.
这些成功案例一般由NGO（非政府组织）或者基金会参与完成。
But what was also interesting was that none of them actually scaled.
但是这些成功案例都有一个问题，就是他们的规模有严重的局限性。
All of them were limited to 50, 100 or 500 schools.
所有的案例规模都只有50所，100所或者最多500所学校。
And here, we were looking for a solution for 15,000 schools.
我们要找的是能适用于15000所学校的方案。
So we looked into why, if these things actually work, why don't they actually scale?
我们仔细分析了原因，如果这些项目效果显著，为什么不能扩大规模？
What happens is that when a typical NGO comes in, they not only bring in their expertise but they also bring in additional resources.
我们发现，当NGO参与进来时，他们不仅投入了他们的专业经验，还能够投入额外的资源。
So they might bring in money, they might bring in people, they might bring in technology.
NGO可能投入额外的资金，可能投入额外的人力，也有可能投入新的技术。
And in the 50 or 100 schools that they actually operate in, those additional resources actually create a difference.
当NGO主持的项目的规模限制在50所或者100所学校的时候，这些额外投入的资源产生了很好的效果。
But now imagine that the head of this NGO goes to the head of the School Education Department and says,
但是想象一下，这些NGO的负责人跑到省教育厅，说：
"Hey, now let's do this for 15,000 schools."
“让我们在15000所学校推广吧！”
Where is that guy or girl going to find the money to actually scale this up to 15,000 schools?
问题是到哪儿去募集到足够多的资金，能同时支持15000所学校呢?

He doesn't have the additional money, he doesn't have the resources.
他们没有这么多额外的资金，也没有这么多额外的资源。
And hence, innovations don't scale. So right at the beginning of the project, what we said was,
所以这样的创新项目没办法大范围推广。所以在项目开始的时候我们就明确了，
"Whatever we have to do has to be scalable, it has to work in all 15,000 schools."
“不管我们做什么都要能够大规模推广，一定要能够同时支持15000所学校。”
And hence, it has to work within the existing budgets and resources that the state actually has. Much easier said than done.
因此，我们必须在现有的政府预算内利用省内现有的资源达成目标。说起来比做起来容易多了。
I think this was definitely the point in time when my team hated me.
我想正是从这个时间点开始，我的同事开始“恨”我了。
We spent a lot of long hours in office, in cafés, sometimes even in bars,
我们花了很多的时间，无论是在办公室，咖啡馆，甚至在酒吧，
scratching out heads and saying, "Where are the solutions, how are we going to solve this problem?"
想破了脑袋，“到底应该怎么办，怎样才能解决这些问题？”
In the end, I think we did find solutions to many of the issues. I'll give you an example.
最终, 我觉得大部分的问题都找到了比较好的解决方法。我来举个例子。
In the context of effective learning, one of the things people talk about is hands-on learning.
在“如何更有效率地学习”这个问题上，人们常说要通过动手操作来加深印象。
Children shouldn't memorize things from books, they should do activities, and that's a more effective way to learn.
学生不应该死记硬背，而是应该做些课堂活动，这样学习的效果更好。
Which basically means giving students things like beads, learning rods, abacuses.
这个想法实现起来就是要给学生一些教具，例如小珠子、小棒子、算盘之类。
But we did not have the budgets to give that to 15,000 schools, 2 million children.
但是我们没有那么多预算提供给15000所学校的两百万学生。
We needed another solution. We couldn't think of anything.
我们要想别的方法。但是始终没有想到解决方法。
One day, one of our team members went to a school and saw a teacher pick up sticks and stones from the garden outside
有一天，我们一个同事在一所学校里看到一个老师，从学校周围的花丛里捡了点小树枝和小石子，
and take them into the classroom and give them to the students. That was a huge eureka moment for us.
拿到了教室里，分给了学生。这一幕让我们灵光一闪。
So what happens now in the textbooks in Haryana is that after every concept,
于是现在在Haryana省的课本里，每一个新知识点的旁边都有一段注解，
we have a little box which are instructions for the teachers which say,
为老师提供了一个操作清单，
"To teach this concept, here's an activity that you can do.
“教授这个知识点的时候你可以通过以下活动来促进学生理解。
And by the way, in order to actually do this activity, here are things that you can use from your immediate environment,
活动需要一些辅助的教具，而你可以在你周边环境中找到，
whether it be the garden outside or the classroom inside, which can be used as learning aids for kids."
无论是在室外还是教室内都可以就地取材，用于课堂教学。”
And we see teachers all over Haryana using lots of innovative things to be able to teach students.
我们后来看到Haryana省的老师们想出了各种创新的方法来教育学生。
So in this way, whatever we designed, we were actually able to implement it across all 15,000 schools from day one.
从这个角度看，我们的方法虽然简陋，但是起到了实实在在的效果，并且从第一天起就能推广到全省15000所学校。
Now, this brings me to my last point. How do you implement something across 15,000 schools and 100,000 teachers?
现在，让我阐述下最后一个观点。你怎么样让一件事情贯彻到15000所学校，贯彻到十万名老师身上呢？
The department used to have a process which is very interesting. I like to call it "The Chain of Hope."
教育部门之前有一套流程，我觉得非常有意思。我喜欢叫这个过程“希望的链条”。
They would write a letter from the headquarters and send it to the next level, which was the district offices.
从教育厅开始，写一封信件，然后投递给下一集教育部门，一般是市县级教委办公室。
They would hope that in each of these district offices, an officer would get the letter, would open it, read it
教育厅希望每个下级部门的部门领导都能够打开并阅读这封信件，
and then forward it to the next level, which was the block offices.
然后再将信件转发给他们的下一级，一般是区级教委。
And then you would hope that at the block office,
接下来你需要指望这些区级教委，
somebody else got the letter, opened it, read it and forwarded it eventually to the 15,000 principals.
有人能够收到邮件，阅读完信件，并最终将信件送到15000所学校的校长手里。
And then one would hope that the principals got the letter, received it, understood it and started implementing it.
最后，我们还要指望所有的校长能够顺利收到邮件，阅读并理解其中的意思，并开始实施。
It was a little bit ridiculous. Now, we knew technology was the answer,
这个过程有点夸张。现在，我们知道正确的方式是借助科技，
but we also knew that most of these schools don't have a computer or email.
但是我们也知道大部分的学校连个电脑或者电邮地址都没有。
However, what the teachers do have are smartphones.
不过每个老师现在都有智能手机了。
They're constantly on SMS, on Facebook and on WhatsApp.
老师们都可以收发短信，挂在Facebook和WhatsApp上。
So what now happens in Haryana is, all principals and teachers are divided into hundreds of WhatsApp groups
现在在Haryana省我们是这么做的，我们建立了几百个WhatsApp群，把所有的校长和老师都加到里面，
and anytime something needs to be communicated, it's just posted across all WhatsApp groups.
这样当我们需要传达一些信息的时候，我们就直接通过WhatsApp群发就行了。
It spreads like wildfire. You can immediately check who has received it, who has read it.
像野火一样传播下去。你还能随时知道哪些人收到了消息，哪些人已经阅读了。
Teachers can ask clarification questions instantaneously.
老师们如果有不明白的地方可以立刻提出。
And what's interesting is, it's not just the headquarters who are answering these questions.
有趣的是，不仅是教育厅会有人回答老师的问题，
Another teacher from a completely different part of the state will stand up and answer the question.
有时候别的市县的老师也会主动提供答案。
Everybody's acting as everybody's peer group, and things are getting implemented.
大家在群组中更像是互助的关系，很多事情就这么推动起来了。
So today, when you go to a school in Haryana, things look different.
所以现在你去Haryana省的任何一所学校，情况都跟过去大不相同了。
The teachers are back inside classrooms, they're teaching.
老师们回到了课堂，重新走上了讲台。
Often with innovative techniques. When a supervisor comes to visit the classroom,
新的技术不断被引入到课堂中。当教委领导视察学校时，
he or she not only checks the construction of the toilet but also what is the quality of teaching.
不仅会检查是否修了厕所，也会检查教学质量。
Once a quarter, all students across the state are assessed on their learning outcomes and schools which are doing well are rewarded.
每个季度，全省的学生都要做一次全省的摸底考试，考得好的学校会被奖励。
And schools which are not doing so well find themselves having difficult conversations.
表现的不好的学校，教委会找校长谈话。
Of course, they also get additional support to be able to do better in the future.
当然，这些学校会得到更多扶持，并努力在未来表现得更好。
In the context of education, it's very difficult to see results quickly.
在教育领域，很难看到立竿见影的成果。
When people talk about systemic, large-scale change, they talk about periods of 7 years and 10 years. But not in Haryana.
当人们谈论大规模的、系统性的改革时，一般说的是7到10年为一个周期。但是Haryana要快得多。
In the last one year, there have been three independent studies, all measuring student learning outcomes,
去年，三个相互独立的研究在Haryana进行，都是研究学生的学习效果的，
which indicate that something fundamental, something unique is happening in Haryana.
它们都表明在Haryana省，一些根本性的东西正在变化。
Learning levels of children have stopped declining, and they have started going up.
学生的平均学习成绩不再下滑，甚至开始有所上升。
Haryana is one of the few states in the country which is showing an improvement,
Haryana是全印度为数不多的总体学生成绩在改善的省份，
and certainly the one that is showing the fastest rate of improvement.
而且当之无愧是改善速度最快的省份。
These are still early signs, there's a long way to go, but this gives us a lot of hope for the future.
这些还只是起步阶段，还有很长路要走，但是我们从中看到了很大的希望。
I recently went to a school, and as I was leaving, I ran into a lady,
我最近去一所学校，准备离开的时候，遇到了一位女士，
her name was Parvati, she was the mother of a child, and she was smiling.
她叫Parvati，她的孩子在这里上学，她正微笑着。
And I said, "Why are you smiling, what's going on?"
我问她，“你在笑什么？有什么事情吗？”
And she said, "I don't know what's going on, but what I do know is that my children are learning,
她说，“我也不知道发生了什么，但是我知道我的孩子们开始学习了，
they're having fun, and for the time being, I'll stop my search for a private school to send them to."
学得还挺开心，现在我已经决定不再找私立学校让他们转校了。”
So I go back to where I started: Can government systems transform? I certainly believe so.
最后让我们回到开始的问题：政府机构能够改革吗？我很确信可以。
I think if you give them the right levers, they can move mountains. Thank you.
我相信如果你提供了合适的着力点，他们就能够带来翻天覆地的变化。谢谢。