Tuesday, 2 October 2012

Alternative Education in India - An overview

This article has been written to give a bird’s eye view of current scenario of Alternative education and alternative schooling in India. The content is coming primarily from the experiences and perspectives of the author and thus may not be considered totally objective. 

Definition of Key terms:
For sake of clarity and discussions pertaining to this article, we will try to define the terms before we go any further.

Any educational method, philosophy or pedagogy that differs significantly from the mainstream's way of education may be termed as Alternative Education, a school that claims to follow any alternative ways of education may be considered as an Alternative School.

Mainstream Education is the system of education followed by majority primarily based on Industrial revolution. While each school in mainstream might differ in their operations the central focus and overall philosophy remains uniform. Mainstream education is strictly based on pre-defined curriculum, a subjective grading and marking system and is mostly lecture based. Mainstream education considers competition and comparisons as important part of education while not collaboration. Lastly, mainstream education has a singular view of students and expects them to fit into certain expected patterns. (One size fit all solution)

History of Alternative Education in India
India has been a land of Alternative Education. It was only during and after British rule that the mainstream education was accepted in India. As clearly explained in the book “The beautiful tree” by Dharampal, India had a much richer education system prior to colonial rule.

Even after advent of British, Alternative education has been discussed fervently across the nation. Mahatma Gandhi’s Nai Taleem or Gijubhai Badeka’s adaptation of Montessori methods for India are two of many such examples. 
Many religious and philosophical leaders of India like Swami Vivekananda, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Maharishi Yogananda, Satya Sai Baba have also setup schools across nation with objective to follow alternative ways of schooling.

Current Situation of Alternative Education in India
While there is certainly increase in number of people, institutions and groups who are facing problems with mainstream education and thus leaning towards alternative ways of education, still the percentage is very very low.

Some of the organizations like Shikshantar and SIDH have been working on newer possibilities of learning communities and systems. While others like Krishnamurti foundation and Ramakrishna Mission have been trying to improve educational systems within current setup of schools.

Nevertheless, we see a growing awareness and debate on the topic of mainstream and alternative education.
Bollywood movies like 3 Idiots and Tare Zameen par has had a deep impact on Indian mass. There has also been an increase in coverage in Media of topics related to education.

The number of alternative schools in India has definitely gone up. While there exists no statistical study or government records, one can clearly see the growing number of alternative schools in India through various informal online directories and groups.

NCF 2005 - (National Curriculum Framework) put forward by Education Dept. of India is itself a very interesting framework. It can well fall into alternative education's arena if implemented in its true spirit. However, much remains only on paper and the only practices adopted by schools from NCF are the ones that are easy and non-destructive of current mainstream systems.

There seems to be more awareness and a greater momentum towards alternative education in South India as compared to North India. Finding the reasons for this would perhaps need a wider research of economy, history and culture.

The problems with Alternative Education in India
The problems, rather challenges in alternative education in India (and perhaps in the world), are absence of answers and successful alternatives. A lot of alternative schools can easily be labeled as “Experimental”. The educators and the owners of the schools usually apply pedagogy or philosophies which they consider superior and right. Quite often, there is no scientific or other evidences in favor of the new methods of education that any alternative school might be following. Most of the experiments are very subjective.

For e.g. a school in central India is following ideas proposed by A.S. Neil in his book Summer Hill, primarily because the founders were impressed by his ideas. Similarly, a lot of schools are following one particular philosophy. Some follow Nai Taleem method put forward by Mahatma Gandhi, others follow J. Krishnamurti’s vision. Some schools have sprouted up based on ideas of Edward de bono, John Holt and Ken Robinson.

While these all schools can be called as alternative, we are not in a position to say whether these alternatives are good or just “less bad”. Also, while in theory a school might claim to follow Nai Taleem or Tagore’s vision of education- they might be terribly incapable of imparting the true spirit of such philosophies due to numerous problems of current times.
A lot of so called alternative schools, over time has also turned into “mainstream” due to various unknown and known reasons. Another danger that we face is that a lot of parents and students could be exploited in name of alternative education and be charged hefty fees.

Way ahead – Future of Alternative Education
Perhaps, no one can ever comment on this aspect. We are not in a position to say anything with surety, however we must keep up our study, experiments and attempts to find answers and better ways of education. This is already happening. For e.g. Lumiar – a school in Brazil founded by Semlar foundation is perhaps one of the few examples that tried to become alternative and yet remain scientific.
They formed a team of experts and then came up with a new model of education. They came up with various recommendations and new methods which they called “innovative schooling.” They follow project based learning and have redefined the role of teachers.
Such attempts must be expanded and such studies must be taken forward.

Further, to form a network of such schools will help collaborate and find collective solutions. In India, a school in north is reinventing which perhaps a school in south has already done with lot of hardwork and vice versa. A network of such schools will certainly give momentum to the alternative education movement in India.

Conclusion
Education is not just schooling. It is beyond schools. We learn from family, society, markets, media, outings, travel and many other avenues. If we really wish to give better education to our children, just changing few things in schools might not go too far. We have to improve ourselves and our society which calls for a bigger transformation. A successful alternative school might not be of much use if the child is to finally join a society that still runs on mainstream ideas. While schooling is good point to begin, we must strive to change everything that has proven wrong over time. This could range from our economic systems, environmental policies to our way of life and relation to each others.

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