Community Schooling in India

October 2, 2016 October 2, 2016

The concept of community schooling can be traced back to ancient India. Social institutions like Ashram, Gurukula, Pathasala, Vihara,Vidyapeeth, etc. existed and still do exist which promote community schooling.

In community schooling, besides education, the all-round cultural development of the person, and formation of integrated moral character were the aims and objectives of educational processes.

Advantages of Community Schooling

Community schools are run by local communities. Therefore, the possibility of corruption gets reduced greatly.
In community schools, it is the community which will be responsible for recruiting the teachers and they can put it in their own money to recruit a better teacher if they can. The selection of teachers will be merit based and the teachers will be under continuous monitoring by the community and there is a high level of accountability which comes inherently along with the concept of community schools.
The needs of the children are the highest priority in community schools because it is largely parents or neighbours or relatives of the children who will be running the school.

Examples of Community Based Education

Muktangan

Muktangan was founded in the year 2003. It is a community-based education model, operating within the mainstream school educational system. Being more inclusive and child centric in nature, it is offering quality education to children in poor communities – those who are most likely to be left out in the rapid urban growth of India.

Global Pathways School

Village Community Schools (VCS) based in Toronto operates Global Pathways School (GPS) in India. It helps in building a new model for sustainable education and development.