GUWAHATI: With an experience of over 20 years in the field of teaching, Bidisha Baruah is an eminent educationist from Guwahati who has recently opened her own educational institute – Chrysalis Kindergarten.
Before she established Chrysalis, she used to teach English at various schools. A simple personality, highly understanding by nature, supportive, willing with excellent management skills, she carries the perfect traits of a teacher.
Born and brought up in Guwahati, Bidisha did her schooling from Holy Child School and went on to pursue graduation in Arts with English major from Handique Girls’ College and post graduation from Cotton College. She then did a course on Bachelors of Education from College of Education, Guwahati.
Bidisha started her teaching career with Disneyland High School where she taught for a year. In the beginning of her career as a teacher, she changed quite a few schools – she taught at St Mary’s Higher Secondary School and Maria’s Public School for a year each. Thereafter she taught at a school in Bangalore for two years and finally joined Sarala Birla Gyan Jyoti (SBGJ) in 2004 where she taught for 11 years. At SBGJ, not only did she teach English, she was also the middle school coordinator. Bidisha went on to join Delhi Public School, Kamrup in the role of Headmistress, where she spent two and a half years.
Finally, in November 2018, she embarked on her entrepreneurial journey and opened Chrysalis with the aim to give importance to the social and emotional development of the child.
“I have always dreamt of doing something on my own. In the 20 years of my teaching career, I donned several hats – I’ve been a teacher, a coordinator and a headmistress. This long journey enabled me to gather a lot of experience in teaching and administration and boosted my confidence. With Chrysalis, I want to give importance to activity-based learning, doing away with textbooks,” said Bidisha, speaking to G Plus about the inception of her school.
Bidisha describes the journey of venturing into the field of entrepreneurship from teaching as a big challenge. But she has a firm belief that prioritizing her goals will help her establish a reputed school that will develop confident, responsible and independent individuals. She wishes to establish Chrysalis as one of the best schools in the city.
Married to Prasanta Kumar Baruah, Bidisha is the mother of two talented daughters – Swagata Gautam and Srishti Gautam. Being surrounded by children both at home and at work, Bidisha opined that social media now plays a tremendous role in education. Internet has its advantages and disadvantages – while it makes education convenient, it can also act as a distraction for children, she says.
Bidisha, talking to G Plus about the present scenario of education in Assam said, “The present scenario of education in Assam is satisfactory. However, I believe that private schools are doing much better than the government schools. There’s still a huge gap between the two and the government needs to do much better work in terms of appointing quality teachers, maintaining student teacher ratio and ensuring regularity.”
She further informed about the difference in education that she sees today, compared to her own days in school, and said, “During our school days the system of education and teaching was very conventional but now we see a vast difference. Now students are exposed to a variety of things – there’s a wide array of options to choose from.”
To all the women who aspire to become entrepreneurs, Bidisha’s word of advice is, “Have faith in yourself, build a strong team and work hard towards reaching your goal.”
