By Vaibhav Nahar
Alternative education and alternative modes of getting educated have existed for quite some time now; it is only now with the slight push of the ‘new normal’ and the global pandemic which has increased awareness of these alternative mediums.
My experience about the existence of alternative modes of education in our country came when I first interacted with home-schooled children living in Pondicherry. Home-schooling, as a concept, remained a distant thought, which I have only read about in novels and seen it in the movies. However, after meeting with these bright young minds left me quite impressed with the knowledge that they hold about critical skills of life and what’s happening in the world, my stigma about these alternative methods of education was dissipating. In the years to come, I met with several instances where I got the opportunity to interact with many more parents who, despite the resources and means to afford the best of education and educational institutions for their children, deliberately opted for an alternative education medium for their children.
Is there a rising distrust building in the intellectual community of India against the current education system? In pockets of India, which is far from the metropolitan city’s hustle and bustle, are parents exploring alternative education streams and alternative modes? Till now, the method of online education had been kept on the bay which parents wouldn’t adopt. The pandemic broke out and changed the education sector completely. Why do we need classrooms when you can build break out areas online? Why do we need whiteboards and blackboards when you have shared whiteboards given by Google or Microsoft to brainstorm online, why do we need textbooks when we have tablets and laptops? Why do we need to our children to pursue traditional streams of education like engineering or medicine for assuring a secure future for our children, when in the age of influencers and Instagrammers, a post or a picture online can fetch millions of dollars in revenue. The next wave of educators is already making headways into this. The traditional educational institution will cease to exist as parents and children alike have realised the possibility of a virtual ‘classroom’. For many young learners, the possibility of enrolling for a course abroad to get an ‘international’-level education is wholly transformed. Why do they need to spend lakhs of their hard-earned money when they can get the same degree while sitting from the comforts of their home.
The rising possibilities have also given rise to an alternative view on education, why is it that a young learner needs to do a standardised route of Engineering followed by an MBA to acquire a job of Rs.10–15 lakhs per annum. Fields of study such as Blockchain, Data Science, Digital Marketing, UX design, Design Thinking and more are on the rise, fields which don’t demand a traditional education anymore and are beginning to find their footing in organisations of the future.
Observing this trend very keenly for the past few years, ImaginXP has built itself as a future skills company providing virtual classes in UX design, Design thinking and coming up with courses in Fintech, Blockchain, Data Science and more such futuristic courses.
