Picking the book from the library's bookshelves, I was first attracted by the title. "The Beautiful Tree". Wait a minute, who is the author? James Tooley!!! Isn't he the author of the award winning essay a few years back that really impressed me for its new perspective on education for the less economically endowned group? I must read this.
"The Beautiful Tree: A personal journey into how the World's Poorest people are Educating Themselves" is a perspective book. It challenges the normal conceptions and pre-conceptions that development experts have on how to increase accessibility of education to the poor. It challenges that this can only be done through much more aid and getting more educated teachers into the public schools. The book shows that a possible way is private schools for the poor.
The book is insightful and sets you thinking. Is development really better by following blindly the route of the developed countries where not only are there cultural differences, the society framework may be different? Who knows better? Development experts from developed countries who may not understand the lives of the poor and just proclaim their developed path is the only path or the poor who are facing the issue everyday? More efforts can be made to understand the lives that the poor lead and find solutions that will work in their society framework. We certainly have a lot to learn about and from them.
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