We need a pedagogy free from fear and focused on the magic of children's innate quest for information and understanding.
Sugata MitraRead
The Indian education system, like the Indian bureaucratic system, is Victorian and still in the 19th century. Our schools are still designed to produce clerks for an empire that does not exist anymore.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The Indian education system is outdated and focuses on creating workers for a past empire rather than preparing students for the modern world.
Sugata Mitra critiques the Indian education system, comparing it to the bureaucratic systems of the Victorian era, which he argues are antiquated and misaligned with contemporary needs. He points out that the current educational approach still aims to produce clerical workers suitable for an empire that has long since dissolved, thus failing to equip students with the necessary skills for today's society and future challenges.
Themes
EducationSystemOutdatedLearningSkillsModernization
In practice
Example use cases
During a seminar on educational reform, this quote could be used to emphasize the need for change in the curriculum.
More from Sugata Mitra
All quotes →It's quite fashionable to say that the educational system is broken. It's not broken. It's wonderfully constructed. It's just that we don't need it anymore.
Sugata MitraRead
In nine months, a group of children left alone with a computer - in any language - would reach the same standard as an office secretary in the West.
Sugata MitraRead
If children have interest, then Education happens
Sugata MitraRead
I was inspired by the Hole in the Wall project, where a computer with an internet connection was put in a Delhi slum. When the slum was revisited after a month, the children of that slum had learned how to use the worldwide web.
Sugata MitraRead
Students are rewarded for memorization, not imagination or resourcefulness.
Sugata MitraRead
Similar quotes
To create and distribute a free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language - That's who I am. That's what I am doing. That's my life goal.
Jimmy WalesRead
Usually kids who are talented have the brashness to think they can do anything, but they don't often get the chance to see how close they can come.
Twyla TharpRead
Play is a child's work and this is not a trivial pursuit.
Alfred AdlerRead
It's hunger. It's homelessness, often. It's underfunded, under-resourced schools. It's abuse beyond the chilling. It's having overwhelmed parents and caregivers. Those are the things that young people are struggling with beyond our view.
Susan L. TaylorRead
In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day's work. It is invisible and remains so, maybe for twenty years.
Jacques BarzunRead
Traveling is my form of self-education. Every stream I fish now is not as good as it used to be. Traveling is my form of self-education. Every stream I fish now is not as good as it used to be. If you keep your eyes open as you travel around, you realize we are destroying this planet.
Yvon ChouinardRead