The future of education: An interview with Sugata Mitra | Sugata Mitra | TEDxRíodelaPlata

We interviewed Sugata Mitra, winner of the 2013 TED Prize. His wish: Build a School in the Cloud, where children can explore and learn from one another.
We discussed the progress he made in achieving his dream and he shared his perspective on the future of education.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

Diego Golombek:
(Spanish) Sugata, it's an honor

to have you here at TEDxRíodelaPlata.

I think that many of us surely know you
from your former experiments.

Remember "A hole in the wall," right?

That one about a computer
suddenly appearaing in a village.

But now I want to ask you about
what's going on at the moment with SOLE,

about what happened with the TED Prize:
How is the implementation going?

How is it making progress?
What is your assessment of it?

Sugata Mitra: I think he wants to know
what happened after that film.

So, let me tell you what happened.

We built seven Schools in the Cloud.

Five in India and two in England.

What is the School in the Cloud?

Well, let me give you a small example.

You know, people used to travel
from one place to another

in a horse-drawn carriage
for thousands of years,

until the automobile was invented.

When the automobile was invented
the horse and carriage went away

and the coachman, the man
who used to drive the horse and carriage,

he also went away

and the passengers became the drivers.

In the School in the Cloud
what we are trying to find out is:

Is it possible in our education systems --

has the time come
to make the passengers drive?

So, we launched these seven schools.

The most distant one had nothing:

no electricity, no health care,
no schools.

The best ones, in England, had everything.

And then, we let the learners
drive the car.

What happened?

You might think that I am going to say
something romantic, but I am not.

I got bitten by one million mosquitoes.

(Laughter)

(Applause)

And then, the children began to change.

In England,
the students wrote me an e-mail

saying "Why are they teaching?"

In Korakati, the most distant
of our Schools in the Cloud,

the children said,

"Why does the skyped in Granny
speak such simple English?

Doesn't she know that we understand her?"

(Laughter)

In another Bengal village, Chandrakona,

I noticed a distinct Birmingham accent.

(Laughter)

It was faster than anything
that I had expected.

I don't know if you are going
to believe this:

in Korakati, the village where
the children know no English at all,

on day number three,

one of the English teachers
who skyped in said,

"You know, those children are very sweet,
they said 'When are you coming back?'"

I said, "In what language
did they ask you?"

And she said: "In English."
Three days.

(Applause)

Thank you.

So, I asked the children,

"How did you learn to speak
in English so quickly?"

And they looked at me and said,

"You know that woman
who comes on the screen?

She doesn't understand
anything other than English."

(Applause)

Now, for the bad news.

The seven laboratories
have seven different kinds of problems.

The biggest problem is not pedagogy,
it is not teaching and learning,

it is technology.

So, I struggle to keep those
remote locations running

but I know that I will find the way,
I still have one more year to go,

I know I will find the way
to keep them running

and I know for sure,

and I tell you this for the first time
in the world on a TED stage,

the passengers are driving the car.

(Applause)

Thank you.

So, one last little bit
that I need to tell you:

I used to get called to conferences,

I still do,

but for the last one year
I have been called

by the Education Department
of governments of different countries.

They are listening.

And I have only one suggestion to them;

something that I want
some government to try,

perhaps the government here, in Argentina.

It is very simple:

I want someone to allow the use
of the Internet during examinations.

(Applause)

Thanks.

I know there are students here,
and I know that the examination

is the only day in their life when
they don't have access to the Internet.

So I hope I will be able to change that.

And, if the Internet enters
the examination,

the entire system will have changed.

It would then be an idea
that was worth spreading.

DG: (Spanish) Sugata, a question that
you are surely being asked all the time.

With this about self organized learning,

What happens with the teachers,
what's left for the teachers?

SM: You know, there is a misconception
that teachers will not have a role.

That's not true, that's not true at all.

In a SOLE, children find
the answers to questions.

But who makes the question?
Who listens to their answers?

Who says, most importantly,
"That was well done"?

That is what the teacher has to do.

(Applause)

DG: (Spanish)
Regarding what Sugata mentioned

about this being implemented here,

there's a plan for at least
one school in Barracas

that will begin soon
with this SOLE system

of self organized learning
in the School in the Cloud.

And a last question, Sugata.

He arrived yesterday, he's being taken
from one place to another.

So it's an honor that he would spend
some little time with us here.

The last question is:

One of your main concerns
is the school of the future.

Let's think a middle-term future,
in 50 years:

How do you imagine...
how do you wish school to be?

SM: You know... It's hard for me to say
what the school will look like.

But something much deeper will happen
and it won't take 50 years to happen.

Our definition of the word 'to know'.

What does it mean when you say
"I know something"?

It could be something that you learned
in school when you were seven years old

or it could be something
that Google told you one minute ago.

Knowing doesn't mean anything.

Should we feel sorry?
No, I don't think so.

Ideas, like objects, become obsolete.

When I started, I thought...

I was saying "schools will be obsolete".

I am now forced to say
that knowing will be obsolete.

What we will take is this:

the collective consciousness
of seven billion people.

(Applause)