An alum of IIT-Kharagpur with an MBA from IIM-Ahmedabad, Arghya Banerjee is founder of the co-ed Levelfield School (estb.2010), a K-12 institution affiliated with the UK-based Cambridge Assessment International Education (formerly Cambridge International Examinations) board. Sited in Suri, the administrative headquarters of West Bengal’s Birbhum district, the school admitted its first batch of 65 students in April 2010. Currently, it has 500 students instructed by 25 teachers.
A strong believer in the transformative power of high-quality school education, Banerjee forsook a promising career with Irevna Pvt. Ltd — an equity research company — and chose Suri (pop. 67,864), a small tier-III town 200 km from bustling metropolitan Kolkata, to set up the school. He believes “children in small towns have the same potential and ability to shine, but want for opportunity”. Hence the name of the school.
Newspeg. Given the school’s small town location, Banerjee believes the key to improving students is to make parents aware and tech-savvy. To that end, he recently launched an innovative parent engagement programme to teach them about the linkage between technology and education.
“We organised a two-day weekend programme last month, in which we taught parents how to use smartphones and tablets, and access various educational apps. It culminated in a contest in which our parents body worked on various math apps developed by the school. We plan to take the programme forward in the next few months to teach parents other productive usages of technology — like using the Internet to file tax returns, apply for passports, online banking,” says Banerjee.
History. While working as CEO of Irevna, Banerjee was disappointed that Indian graduates weren’t job ready and the company had to invest time in teaching them logical thinking, succinct writing and effective communication skills — competencies they should have learnt in school. Therefore, Levelfield is strongly focused on developing love of reading, logical thinking, and social awareness and has created its own library of reading materials by simplifying the classics. The school’s 2,500-volume library ensures that even primary school children read 1,500 pages per year.
Future plans. Banerjee plans to spread the Levelfield pedagogy using the technology solutions he has developed, particularly Delta (graded reading programme) downloadable on the Android and iOS platforms. “Through downloads from Google Play Store and App Store, these apps are now increasingly being used by parents in all corners of the world. We would like to spread our pedagogies by building more apps and programs, and by encouraging other schools to use them,” he says.
Simultaneously, Banerjee is creating awareness about the evils of rote-learning. “Most of the ills of Indian education are the outcome of poor policies, excessive regulation, outdated syllabuses and rote-learning-rewarding exams. Moreover, tuition fee regulation prevents fresh investment and ideas from flowing into the education sector. I am planning to spread awareness by writing about these issues on various online and offline platforms,” says this idealist educator.
Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata)