Children try Slumdog Millionaire method of education

Mar 9 2010 by Joanne Butcher, The Journal

SCHOOLCHILDREN from Gateshead tried the Slumdog Millionaire method of education yesterday.

The 10-year-olds, from St Aidan’s primary school, Teams, were the first to get to grips with Newcastle University’s new iLAB.

They were using educational technology which helped inspire the Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire.

Professor Sugata Mitra at the university has been working with the group for several months.

The academic unwittingly inspired Slumdog Millionaire after setting up “holes-in the-wall” in rural India allowing children unsupervised access to computers.

The research project proved that inquisitive youngsters can fast get to grips with IT, even if they had never had access to technology before.

Now, Prof Mitra hopes to adapt the findings to help improve education in the North East.

He said: “Groups of Indian children were able to organise their own lessons using a single computer through unsupervised access to the web, albeit with a friendly mediator on hand if they needed help.

“When I tried a similar approach in Gateshead it worked even better, for the simple reason that English is their native language, so they don’t need to struggle to overcome that barrier.”

The iLAB is designed to encourage independent learning by letting children work with computers on their own.

Prof Mitra explained that children who used internet searches or interactive software to find the answers to problems were more likely to remember the answers than those who were told by their teacher. He tested the theory by giving 10-year-olds GCSE-level questions to research online, then quizzing them on the answers several months later. Most remembered the answers.

Yesterday, St Aidan’s pupils were given two hours to research Egypt using the internet search engine Google.

If they got stuck, they could use Skype – a type of software that allows users to contact people on their computers or phones to call a mediator.

“The sheer excitement of using the computers means that children take in the information much better,” said Prof Mitra. “They used Skype to speak to a teacher in India and find out the answers to questions.

“The things they asked were varied, from what the weather was like to what the teacher was wearing on her feet. But they will have taken in the information and will probably remember it for the rest of their lives.

“I’m not suggesting we do away with teachers, far from it, but maybe it’s time to look at how we can make best use of teachers, by using their talents more creatively and productively and letting children learn certain things their own way.

“Schools using self-organised learning centres or SOLEs to complement their existing teaching are realising they have an immediate effect on the behaviour and the attainment levels of their pupils.”

Prof Mitra and his colleague Professor James Tooley set up 12 SOLEs in underprivileged areas of India.