Dr. Rita Vyas Nagarkar
Applied Linguist &
Intercultural/Cross Cultural Communication Specialist
Dr. Vyas Nagarkar's work as an entrepreneur is driven by her belief that continuous learning is the fundamental key to success and being and agent for positive impact is a key element in the assessment of her business performance. She strives to improve the lives of the individuals in this ever changing and complex global world, through her institute "Institute of Learning & Development", which is a knowledge sharing and learning organisation. Some of the notable work she has done correlates with Sustainable Development Goals, Agenda 2030 that promote skills for employment, entrepreneurship, financial success, and life long learning opportunities for ALL.
Sustainable Development Goals: Agenda 2030 - Targets 4, 8, 10 & 11
She is actively engaged in her capacity to empower, especially the underprivileged, through education to drive positive social change.
She has written over a thousand bite-sized learning materials disseminated through NGOs working with women and youth in many parts of the world. Her work ties in with SDGs and contributes to the accelerating progress in SDG Target 4: Quality Education, Target 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth, Target 10: Reduced Inequalities, Target 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities.
Capacity Building through Training the Trainers
Dr. Vyas Nagarkar also believes that developing local educators is strong predictor of sustainability because of its potential for skilling and up-skilling the workforce rapidly and exponentially. So she has also prepared "Train the Trainer" course bundles to train thousands of local educators through NGOs contributing to the social upliftment of their communities. The course bundles not only equip participants with a sound understanding of the concept of sustainable development but also cover over one hundred topics covering essential career sector-specific employability and workplace skills.
Social Advocacy and Creating Jobs for South Asians as Native English Teachers in Hong Kong
Dr. Rita Vyas Nagarkar was one of the first in Hong Kong who trained hundreds of qualified teachers from South Asian origin and placed them in schools. It was a herculean feat. The attitude of the hiring schools from primary to tertiary, was quite negative due to the pervasive native speakerism ideology within English Language Teaching. As a result, non-native English Speaking Teachers, despite being qualified were often marginalised. Dr. Vyas Nagarkar not just Trained the Teachers and placed them in schools providing them employment but also unpacked stakeholders’ understanding of native speakerism to further enhance their awareness of linguistic diversity, and in particular, to provide certain guidance in ELT policy and practice.