Khan Academy_ LE02

                                               

When I was asked to write my opinion about “Khan academy.org”, I thought “another educational academy!! Bragging about ways of minting money thru the perennial educational industry!”

 But a brief visit to their website and Wikipedia changed my idea. Mr Khan founded this academy with the initial motive of tutoring his cousin far away from him, using internet. Then, as is the rule of nature, the process got fine tuned and he started uploading tutorials in his convenient hours and Nadia would study with those video tutorials at her convenience.

The idea started working and slowly, Khan found himself being accosted by many other relatives, wanting his guidance in studies. Unaware of what was becoming the foundation of his magnum opus, Khan offered his guidance to all who wanted it. He always chose to avoid the conventional pen paper method of teaching, instead made a tutorial and uploaded on you tube, available for everybody who wants/needs it.

This never before concept of teaching soon turned into a rage and made Khan resign from his job as a finance analyst and take up teaching for the rest of his life! That marked the inception of Khan Academy and a life long journey of unique altruism!

What put me into thoughts was “why should a triple degree holder from MIT and Harvard give up his job and attempt into a venture like this??” I found my answer when I started researching about Khan. Although not much is written and known about his personal life, choices and preferences, I could gather that for his education, he went to public schools in New Orleans (US). He described his fellow schoolmates as “a few classmates were fresh out of jail and others were bound for top universities”!

Who could understand the need of an affordable education system better than Khan who first hand saw the raw potential in children around him?

 They had no or very less money and in any case, could not afford higher education. He had a vision and now a mission in life to achieve!

And Khan is not alone here! There are plenty of enthusiasts who start up new organizations and make it to the top 100 innovative companies in the world, with turnover in billions of dollars. A snapshot from Forbes left me surprised:

And the list goes on!

Isnt it surprising that a regular office going 9-5 job theory X manager comes up with an innovative idea so strong as one of above and makes it to the top 100 organizations in world??

 This transition from X to Y comes from within and reveals the raw potential underlying in the working generation. Only some drive is required to catapult the X factor into Y!!

WHAT IS HAPPENING IN INDIA???

Scenario in modern India has changed a lot from what it was 15-20 years back. We have a completely new set of entrepreneurs coming up and bringing about so many changes! According to research, INDIA ranks second in terms of innovation and the entrepreneurial viewpoint or approach. The list is led by Thailand and to my utter surprise the last name is JAPAN. Who would believe that? Even US, Germany, UK are in the middle league of the race.

Innovation is the key to sustainability today, in any regional or global scenario. One has to understand that managers or employees who think innovatively have the traits of an entrepreneur. What lacks in them, or resists them from achieving that is RISK taking ability. This can again be attributed to the fact that the person has never had an opportunity to take risk, or has never taken an initiative. And India was ranked 2 in a research for people with most innovative thinking. I believe this is true in a context because the kind of development India has had in the past 5-10 years is beyond what we dreamt of, and also in the future its going to be a super power by 2020. Cheers to Indian Entrepreneurs and the workforce of INDIA!

                                                Analogy with Indian Education system

We have plenty of schools and colleges here, with the govt making primary education mandatory, many NGOs slogging day and night to make basic education available to poor!

We are MISSING something here!!!

In a country with population over 1.22 billion, is basic education really sufficient???

Read the stats below and all doubts will vanish!

“Today, over 35% of our population is below the age of 20. By 2020, it is expected that 325 million people in India will reach working age, which will be the largest in the world. This will come at a time when the rest of the developed world will be faced with an ageing population.

 It is estimated that by 2020, US will be short of 17 million people of working age, China by 10 million, Japan by 9 million and Russia by 6 million. At the same time, India will have a surplus of 47 million working people.”

The answer is NO!

Okay... What can be done about it?????

In our economy, we have budget constraints. Making education free of cost for all is impossible! Subsidizing it in the name of caste and backwardness of tribes is sick (an attempt already on road since many decades)!! I have a different idea....

1.       Make sure every youth in our country has adequate resources to complete his studies ATLEAST till graduation. Do not provide with reservation in the selection criteria, but provide adequate resources making him equally competent with the more fortunate ones!

2.       Include compulsory courses of skills building right since the start of education. Make children identify what they love to do and then make specialists out of them. This will ensure that if any child has to drop out of the school/college for any reason, he is equipped well enough to earn his bread and butter and not be a burden on the society. Also, when you do what you love to do, chances of success increase exponentially!

What will happen????

We will have an independent young generation, which is not only literate, but EDUCATED.

How to DO it????

Let us take a cue from Khan! You name the subject and it is there for you to study. If it is not there, Khan offers you an opportunity to introduce it! You can choose to be anything... a student.. Coach.. volunteer... mentor..!

An organization that works solely to help you study, no money to be spent on extra tuition, extra classes!! Connect to internet and world of education opens up at khanacademy.org

Similar initiatives can be started by students studying in various reputed colleges who can blog about their views on education system, best practices happening across the country and may be the content of courses as well!!

All depends on how much you want to accomplish!!