Alternative education, also known as non-traditional education or educational alternative, includes a number of approaches to teaching and learning other than mainstream or traditional education. Educational alternatives are often rooted in various philosophies that are fundamentally different from those of mainstream or traditional education. While some have strong political, scholarly, or philosophical orientations, others are more informal associations of teachers and students dissatisfied with some aspect of mainstream or traditional education. Educational alternatives, which include charter schools, alternative schools, independent schools, and home-based learning vary widely, but often emphasize the value of small class size, close relationships between students and teachers, and a sense of community.
Other words used in place of alternative by many educational professionals include non-traditional, non-conventional, or non-standardized. Those involved in forms of education which differ in their educational philosophy often use words such as authentic, holistic, and progressive as well. While pedagogical controversy is very old, "alternative education" presupposes some kind of orthodoxy to which the alternative is opposed. In general, this limits the term to the last two or perhaps three centuries, with the rise of standardized and, later, compulsory education at the primary and secondary levels.
A wide variety of educational alternatives exist at the elementary, secondary, and tertiary levels of education. These generally fall into four major categories: school choice, alternative school, independent school, and home-based education. These general categories can be further broken down into more specific practices and methodologies.
Many such schools were founded in the United States in the 1970s as an alternative to mainstream or traditional classroom structure. A wide range of philosophies and teaching methods are offered by alternative schools. In 2003 there were approximately 70 alternative schools in the United Kingdom. In the UK public funding is not available for alternative schools and therefore alternative schools are usually fee-paying institutions. In the USA an increasing number of public school systems are offering alternative streams (language-immersion, Montessori, Waldorf), but the majority of alternative schools are still independent and thus without governmental support.
In India, traditional places of learning such as gurukuls and madarsas, and small village schools provided a grounded education over the centuries. Gradually, these were replaced by schools based on a derivative model. Borrowed from the already-industrialized Western world, the new English-education schools were set up to produce standardized individuals who would fit into industrial society and its values. This is now the common pattern followed in all Indian schools—public, private, or government.
The alternative education movement began as a creative reaction to this mass-production approach that dominated education across the world by the beginning of the 20th century. Alternative education aims to nurture latent capabilities and inculcate love for learning.
We will post another article on how Alternative Education is being implemented in India
Information about other syllabus
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