By Rahul RaghavanAsk anyone who runs a school in India what they want for their students and you will hear much the same things: children who can think and communicate, learning beyond textbooks, every child known and supported. The National Education Policy 2020 calls for internships from the middle grades, experiential learning and holistic progress cards. Nobody doubts the intent. So why does so little of it happen?I think the problem is structural. Most schools never consciously chose their basic unit. They inherited one from the past: the class.Children of the same age are assembled, assigned a teacher and a syllabus, and assessed as a class. This helped educate millions. The cost shows up when you put thirty or forty children in one room and the differences between them become enormous. One is two years ahead in mathematics but struggles to write. Another is academically capable but cannot work with others. Yet the machinery of school expects them all to move together. With the class as the focus, the things that happen between people get squeezed out: the apprentice learning alongside someone skilled, the child taught where they are rather than where the class is, and the daily, unglamorous practice of getting along with people you did not choose.For much of the last century, life outside school supplied some of what was missing. Children learned trades from relatives, helped in family businesses, and spent time with neighbourhood adults. That world has changed. Families are smaller, children’s lives are more structured, and evenings disappear into tuition and screens. Meanwhile, AI can increasingly deliver explanations, practice and feedback. That makes the part a machine cannot adequately replace, sustained human relationships, more important than it has ever been. The most promising new schools are organising themselves around the individual child rather than the class. Three things become possible when they do.The first is apprenticeship. Some of the best learning comes from working alongside someone skilled, attempting real work and getting feedback on it. This applies to mathematics and writing as much as to carpentry or business. New schools are bringing this back through student enterprises, real projects and internships. Good apprenticeships of this kind pass three tests. The student does work someone actually needs, answers to a mentor with expertise beyond the classroom, and is judged on the quality of what they produce. The second is personalisation. Gifted and remedial streams solve the school’s problem by labelling the child, and the student two years ahead in mathematics and two years behind in writing fits neither stream. A better approach is to group children by readiness in each subject and change those groups as they progress. That does not need permanent streaming or expensive technology. It needs teachers who know where each child stands, and timetables flexible enough to respond. The third is learning to work with people. Schools often treat communication, collaboration and handling disagreement as things children will pick up along the way, when they need daily practice. Student-led projects, public presentations and shared responsibilities (for both academic work and extracurriculars) may be a slower way to cover a syllabus, but they teach children to persuade, listen, recover from mistakes and work with people they may not especially like. How can a parent tell whether any of this is real? Ask your child’s teacher three questions. Where exactly is my child stuck academically? What interests them outside the ongoing academic work? Who are they finding difficult to socialise with? A teacher in a school built around the child will have specific answers to all three. A teacher who only knows the class will fall back on grades and general reassurance.The obvious objection is cost. Surely this kind of attention needs tiny classes and premium fees?In nearly a decade of running schools, I have found it does not. Student-teacher ratios do not have to be very different. What changes is how teachers spend their day. In a conventional school, much of it goes to delivering one lesson to forty children, correcting similar notebooks, administering exams and preparing for events. In a school built around individual progress, software, peers and independent work can take over some of the routine practice and delivery, and teachers get that time back to observe, diagnose, mentor and step in where they are most needed. Most teachers entered the profession to make a difference to children. Many spend their careers managing classes instead. The best new schools offer them a system that finally lets them do the work they signed up for.This article is written by Rahul Raghavan who is an educator & Founder of PEP Schoolv2DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and ETEducation does not necessarily subscribe to it. ETEducation will not be responsible for any damage caused to any person or organisation directly or indirectly.
