A 17-year-old Indian girl is now on her way to study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She doesn’t have her Class 10, or Class 12 certificates and she hasn’t been to school in four years. She, in fact, learns from home — not surrounded by 30 other students, each vying for teacher’s “special attention”.
Malvika Raj Joshi's journey through the Indian education system ended when her mother Supriya, pulled her out of school. It was a brave step — against considerable odds. Then 14, Malvika was one of her school’s top performers and taking a child who was performing well, out the system meant empowering her with an even more substantial syllabus. Supriya refers to the process as “unschooling” and she had her reasons. “Happiness is more important than conventional knowledge. We are a middle-class family. Malvika was doing well in school but somehow I felt that my children need to be happy,” she told the press.
Homeschooling and alternative education are offering thousands of parents a chance to explore new avenues. For Malvika, a simulation of a classroom was created for her and Supriya even had a bespoke academic curriculum readied. The teenager soon took to programming — an aspect of modern-day life few schools are ready to focus on.
Months later, Malvika started training at the Chennai Mathematical Institute. CMI’s Madhavan Mukund is all about cutting-edge mathematics. “Many often shy away from dealing with Maths, by itself. But slowly, it is gaining prominence. In biology, maths is now helping us create models of proteins which will one day help all of mankind. You never know what future application can use your skills in the subject. Long ago, the study into prime numbers was dismissed by everyone but today, they are integral to banking transactions,” Mr Mukund tells DC.
Through CMI, Malvika started winning at the International Olympiad of Informatics. And MIT, impressed with her programming skills offered her a scholarship.
Her admission has been a shot in the arm for homeschooling — still in the experimental stage here. As of now, the IITs and IIMs don’t have a provision to acknowledge homeschooled children as they are not eligible to take the CBSE or the ICSE tests — and the higher institutions do ask for marks secured in those exams.
One can only wonder then, if our mainstream education is accommodating enough. Because a bright mind like Malvika’s had no place in our system.
