This book will make for interesting reading for teaching professionals keen to explore wider issues of inequality in learning, offering a global context to debates gaining more traction in the UK following the introduction of free schools.
The beautiful tree: a personal journey into how the world’s poorest people are educating themselves
Synopsis
James Tooley is one of the UK’s leading advocates for private education. In this book he outlines his ‘journey’ into some of the poorest neighbourhoods in India, where he found failing state schools had led to parents establishing their own private classrooms.
Outlining the inadequacies and corruption of public education in some of the world’s poorest countries, Tooley argues that private education brings a level of accountability and trust that benefits children and parents alike. Aid agencies, he says, should switch funds to supporting such schools rather than subsidising state systems which, despite the billions poured into them, still fail.