The Beautiful Tree- A Personal Journey into How the World’s Poorest People are Educating Themselves

The School Choice Campaign and Penguin Books launched Professor James Tooley’s new “The Beautiful Tree-A Personal Journey into How the world’s Poorest People are Educating Themselves” on 11 November 2009 at the India Habitat Centre as part of the STUDENT FIRST! Dialogue Series on QualityEducation for All.

The Beautiful Tree is a journey that begins in India and takes the reader to East Asia and Africa, to learn of the efforts of poor communities ineducation . While doing so, one discovers competent, committed entrepreneurs who have started schools catering to slum children. Through the book, the author recounts the stories of engaged teachers, passionate entrepreneurs and teaching models working together to ensure that students are engaged and learning.

The book highlights a wave of change sweeping the nation and the role of numerous small but inspiring private schools run by good samaritans from the communities themselves. The book tells us numerous stories of how the hope and aspirations of the poor and the enterprise of the new school owners come together to offer an alternative to the governmenteducation system.

STUDENT FIRST! Dialogue Series on Quality Education for All is a monthly forum for debate by the nation’s foremost experts on national education policies and solutions to problems of quality in the education sector. The series, a joint initiative of the School Choice Campaign and India Habitat Centre will usher, for the first time in the country, a sustained constructive collaboration of ideas between the policy makers, leading economists, school leaders and other key stakeholders like parents, educationists, civil society bodies, NGOs working on education and the youth.

Read the entire article here. You can also read more about the book and purchase it here.