The Teach a Child School; standardize opportunity not exams

The Teach a Child School, Lahore, video was being shared around yesterday.

Much like the 1 Rupee school profiled in Karachi last year, this school also aims to empower its students, charging an honorific Rs 5 a month, so that students claim ownership over their experiences.

A more detailed profile of the school from its website:

Support:TAC: Teach A Child School System, Lahore, Pakistan (low-res version)

A lot of the points that come up in these sort of interventions and efforts has a lot to do with motivating students, building aspirations, involving teachers and parents in learning and developing an enabling environment. It really pulls the rug from beneath the single point agenda of all political debate on education; the now ubiquitous goal to "standardize" education.

One comment that is notable from the profile is above is about giving students from vulnerable backgrounds, similar opportunities as those from affluent backgrounds.

Now, we should do what we can to support such organizations. The students that come out of these schools will definitely have advantages amongst their peers who attend public schools. However, when we talk about doing our best to help students from poorer backgrounds in general, standardizing education and exams is the last of what should be our concern. This school may be offering better opportunities within its four walls, but what happens once they leave the school?

Whenever one profiles successful interventions in education, you see children accommodated, their needs analysed and provided for and their unique circumstances considered. If we had a standardized curriculum, that would ignore individual circumstances which would do more harm than good.

Supporting campaigns and NGOs is well and good. Granted these help, but actual change of any nature wont come until the children profiled above are not only able to access the same education as their affluent peers, but are able to access support such as tutoring, admission test preparation, work placements and internships, guidance for university application etc.

Its the inequality in opportunity that needs to be reduced, and access to opportunity "standardised". 

In the mean time, we should all support the Teach a Child School and similar initiatives. But also remember that putting kids in brick and mortar schools, and giving them uniforms to wear will help, however, wider society is very unequal; while these kids make their way through school, those at the top are increasing the gap at an accelerating rate.

And just to be clear dumbing everyone down in the name of equality is not the solution either!