Private schools, as recommended by the Economist – Aug. 2012, could also, be modeled on Swedish / American / British “Free / Charter” schools or academies. These are called ‘Free’ schools because they are designed to be largely independent of the local educational bureaucracies and teachers unions. They receive the same level of public funding as the State schools but are independently managed. Such schools have been successful because they offer freedom to shape the school to the pupils, rather than the other way around. Teenagers could even be required to start school at a later hour to meet their biocycle conditions better. Schools can change the length of the school day, the length of the periods, the subjects taught at different times of the day, to best fit in with circadian cycles. They could fire bad teachers and spend the money as they wish. In some, the school year is continuous with short and relatively frequent bursts of holidays, because that keeps the learning on track and the kids out of trouble. The old holiday periods, tuned to Agricultural requirements, are no longer appropriate. It is quite evident now that giving schools independence – so long it is done in the right way, with the right monitoring, right regulations and right safe guards from the State – works.

Perhaps as Sadhguru recommends, the school time should be 50 percent academics and play at school and the balance 50 percent should be practical learning in the Fields (farming or even just gardening),or at Home Learning by doing while helping their parents in their work in traditional skills. Children find such exposure to the natural Green environment and such types of breaks in the conventional learning routines, interesting and more satisfying. Also, as most Artisan skills are better learnt from early childhood, such learning at home, when paralled with school education, cannot be seen as child labour but rather as skill development.

If this is implemented simultaneously with a school voucher system for the poor and an insistence that at least a certain percentage (say at least 10 percent) of the students in each school be from such a category selected on the basis of talent and ability and accorded adequate scholarships, and if the local authorities and the parents are allowed a say on the School’s Board, then the competition of the voucher system, and the oversight of the Board, will ensure that the schools maintain good standards at reasonable costs and are egalitarian. Similar incentives and procedures should also, be implemented for Vocational Training Institutes. Provide tax incentives to encourage people or institutions to award scholarships.

Today there is a viable and working alternative to even what we understand when we say School. Salman Khan’s (the teacher not the actor) academy teaches ‘on – line’, combining mobile devices, free content and an inexpensive blended learning mode, to ensure basic competence in science and the ability to use mathematics in daily life.

Kids find such ‘online’ learning more satisfying as it is more convenient for them. Class time is now reserved for mentoring and one-on-one tutoring by multi-teachers and also, peer tutoring in multi-age class rooms, something that is not only more practical in small schools in rural areas where enough students in each grade may not exist, but has been found to also, be more effective, for teaching and even for learning by the peer or older student teachers.

Prof. Sugata Mitra is developing a new model of education technology at University of Newcastle in England which he calls “minimally invasive education”, by creating “self-organized learning environments” (SOLES). Education must be the teaching of how to understand knowledge and learning to learn, not just memorizing facts and formulae.

It should be recognized that the day of ‘One size fits all’ teaching lessons is over. Today you need customized teaching and a system of feedback that allows the student to learn at his pace and with frequent, on demand, assessments when he feels that he has understood the lesson, with the opportunity to re-learn it if he still needs to.

Khan recommends that a class be like a team where all try to reach to a better performance level guided by the coach. Where the more skilled help the lesser skilled to improve and thus improve the overall team performance. Joint problem solving should be encouraged. Such teaching helps improve learning and also, provides a sense of satisfaction and achievement and inculcates a strong sense of purpose.

‘Knewton’ CEO, Jose Ferreira notes that children;

Learn best in the morning between 0900 and 1100 hours.
• Learn science best with video clips or games instead of text or in addition to text.
• Learn history best in 22 minutes bite sizes, at the 24 minute mark their attention and grasp declines.-

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17