In nine months, a group of children left alone with a computer in any language will reach the same standard as an office secretary in the West. Sugata Mitra More Quotes by Sugata Mitra More Quotes From Sugata Mitra Teachers say to me, 'The internet is full of rubbish, wrong answers.' But you would be surprised how just long it takes to find wrong information on Google, and where it's not obvious that it's wrong. Sugata Mitra google teacher long Children will learn to do what they want to learn to do. Sugata Mitra want children I'm encouraging kids to use computers at their own pace to build aspirations. Sugata Mitra pace use kids I was inspired by the Hole in the Wall project, where a computer with an internet connection was put in a Delhi slum. When the slum was revisited after a month, the children of that slum had learned how to use the worldwide web. Sugata Mitra connections wall children It took nature 100 million years to make the ape stand up and become Homo sapiens. It took us only 10,000 to make knowing obsolete. Sugata Mitra apes knowing years Schools still operate as if all knowledge is contained in books, and as if the salient points in books must be stored in each human brain - to be used when needed. The political and financial powers controlling schools decide what these salient points are. Sugata Mitra decide political brain knowledge There will always be places in the world where good schools don't exist and good teachers don't want to go, not just in the developing world but in places of socioeconomic hardship. Sugata Mitra teachers will good world Too many pupils at schools in the U.K. want to have careers as footballers or TV hosts, or models, because that's what they're constantly exposed to as the heroes of our time. Sugata Mitra heroes because want time In nine months, a group of children left alone with a computer - in any language - would reach the same standard as an office secretary in the West. Sugata Mitra alone group language children My wish for humanity is to invent a way to communicate between us and whatever comes next. And in the end that we the creator of the sentient sapient and the created we have a symbiotic relationship. Sugata Mitra end humanity relationship way I don't mind children cribbing answers off other children. It's one of the ways they can learn. I also don't think there should be too many constraints on what they can look at on the Internet. Sugata Mitra look internet mind children If children know there is someone standing over them who knows all the answers, they are less inclined to find the answers for themselves. Sugata Mitra someone know standing children I don't even want to guess at what computer literacy might do to children, except to say that if cyberspace is considered a place, then there are people who are already in it and people who are not in it. Sugata Mitra place want children people Entertainment can be a more powerful driver than poverty. Sugata Mitra more poverty entertainment powerful The Indian education system, like the Indian bureaucratic system, is Victorian and still in the 19th century. Our schools are still designed to produce clerks for an empire that does not exist anymore. Sugata Mitra empire system like education We need a pedagogy free from fear and focused on the magic of children's innate quest for information and understanding. Sugata Mitra magic understanding fear children Teachers are not supposed to be repositories of information which they dish out. That is from an age when there were no other repositories of information, other than books or teachers, neither of which were portable. A lot of my big task is retraining these teachers. Sugata Mitra teachers big information age Education prepares to be one piece of a machine. Sugata Mitra prepares piece machine education It's quite fashionable to say that the educational system is broken. It's not broken. It's wonderfully constructed. It's just that we don't need it anymore. Sugata Mitra say need just broken You can force students to learn, to a certain extent, but students aren't happy and employers aren't happy. Sugata Mitra you force students happy