Alternate Education:Some Experiences and Reflections from the Field

Every generation pass on their skills and knowledge to the next generation for their survival, growth and development. Still there is an ever changing need and demand both from the individual as well as the society not just to acquire existing knowledge and skills but also to acquire new ones as our society is very dynamic and it keeps changing. Education is the only means to acquire existing and new skills and knowledge in order to meet the needs and demands of the ever changing world and society in which we live. Since these needs and demands of the society keep changing, it becomes difficult as well as not feasible for the formal system of education to fulfill all the demands through it. It becomes imperative to have an alternate system of education. Alternate system of education emerged sometime during the late nineteenth or early twentieth century to fulfill the existing gap and needs of the individuals as well as the society. These gaps and needs exist due to various reasons like the opportunities available in the main stream education system do not always cater to the needs of individuals from different socio-economic and cultural background, in terms of access to main-stream schools and also to individuals needs of learning style, class structure, teaching methods and evaluation. The teacher is the one who plays a crucial role in the actual transaction, execution and implementation of any educational programme; be it in the mainstream or in the alternative education set up. Teacher education owes the responsibility to prepare such well equipped professionals who could take up the instrumental role in the preparation of teachers who can contribute to different educational set ups. This paper is a case study of an educational institution situated in the city of Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh in India. The school conducts its classes using an alternative system of education and it also conducts innovative training practices, for in-service teachers, both for their own school and also for teachers from other schools. This research paper explores the philosophy, innovative practices, problems and challenges of the institute and how it caters to the needs of the students and teachers and the teachers perspectives on in-service teacher education provided by the institution. To know the experiences of the founders and teachers who are parts of the institute, data was collected through semi structured interviews from the founder and director of the institution and also from the teachers of the institution. Observations are taken by the researcher using participatory and non participatory method and data was taken in the form of written field notes. The data is transcribed and analyzed qualitatively and conclusions are drawn.