If solving social problems were a sport, which one would it be? Cricket or football?
For some of us in the meeting room in Hyderabad, where challenges, trust, and personal stories were discussed, the answer came instantly: football.
“See,” someone said with a smile, “cricket can be won by a single batsman or bowler. But football? You need everyone, every single player, to work together. From the goalkeeper to the striker, if one person is out of sync, the whole game crumbles.”
This wasn’t just a casual comparison. It captured the heart of why we gather, why we work as a collective.
Everyone Knows It’s Football- But Are We Playing It?
It’s easy to nod in agreement that social change needs teamwork. But here’s the uncomfortable truth: even though we all say we’re playing football, many of us are on different courts, running with our own ball.
We build programs, run pilots, or launch campaigns in silos. At times, we even discover, only after years, that another organisation was working in the same school or community with a similar goal. The spirit of collaboration is spoken about often, but the structures that make it possible, shared spaces, joint strategies, and open data are still rare.
Building the Field, Not Just the Team
When you think about the challenges in education—student well-being, leadership, access, equity—they don’t come in neat boxes. They’re a tangled web. One institution cannot tackle all of them. But are we designing spaces where our efforts can truly connect?
One of us put it plainly:
“Everything can’t be solved by one person or one institution. We’re all pushing a heavy bus that’s stuck. No matter how strong you are, you can’t push it alone. You need others to lean in with you.”
This is where collectives can shift from a nice idea to an operating principle—through common platforms, transparent goals, and shared accountability. Otherwise, it’s like gathering players without ever building a field: the game never really begins.
From Collaboration to Impact
When collectives work, they’re messy—like a football practice where passes are missed, strategies clash, and not everything goes as planned. But over time, something powerful begins to emerge: alignment, trust, and shared purpose.
One practitioner shared:
“I learned that real change happens not in perfect moments, but in messy, imperfect ones. Every meeting, every experiment, every failure was part of building something bigger than any one of us.”
Another reflected:
“Some efforts didn’t take off. People came and went. But the passion remained. The small experiments we dared to try planted seeds—some of which grew into permanent change.”
These stories show us that collaboration isn’t about just being in the same room. It’s about showing up consistently, nurturing trust, embracing failure, and celebrating small wins—until they grow into something transformational.
Collaboration Over Competition
Perhaps the sharpest line from our Hyderabad conversation was this:
“We don’t want to compete. We want to collaborate. It’s not just a principle, it’s a survival strategy.”
Because the problems we face, what some call “wicked problems”, are too large for one player to dribble the ball all the way to the net.
The Final Whistle
If this work is football, then the goal isn’t scored by a striker alone. It’s built from the first defensive block, the perfect mid-field pass, and the coordination of all players running towards a shared vision.
And that’s why we believe in a collective:
not just because the game is too big to play alone, but because if we don’t actually step onto the same field, we’ll never score at all.
Note :
This reflection is drawn from a conversation among education practitioners who came together under the Telangana Education Leadership Collective (TELC) — a platform for organisations working closely with the public education system in the state of Telangana. The meeting, held in Hyderabad in June 2025, created space for honest dialogue on what it means to work within the system as a collective.
Participants:
- Abhijit Biswas – Bharat Dekho
- Fathima Sali – ShikshaLokam
- Nikshith Gangadevi – Shikshagraha
- Omkarnath Mummadisetty – Digital Equity
- Pavan Kumar Kolli – Future Dots
- Ravali Pidaparthi – Esther
- Saipramod Bathena – Alokit
- Syed Ziaur Rahim – InquiLab
- Vinay R Sanjivi – ShikshaLokam
- Yogitha Pelluri – ShikshaLokam
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