Manit Jain

Manit Jain is the co-founder of the Heritage Xperiential Learning School (HXLS) and the chair of the alliance for reimagining school education in India. With a clear focus on project-based and interdisciplinary learning, Manit and his team have established the Xperiential Learning School as an innovation leader in India in just over a decade.

Manit, what influence did your father Shri N.C. Jain, the visionary founder of the Heritage group of schools, have on your journey into education?

My father practiced and taught yoga in the 90s and helped spread yoga and meditation in schools. But it was more than this – it was about promoting self-awareness and a sense of purpose. He was raising awareness for the social-emotional aspects of education. But moving education beyond the cognitive realm isn’t easy within the constraints of regular schools. In 2002, I dropped everything and joined him in setting up our second and third school, which was a real learning experience for me. Looking at what was going on in classrooms brought back some unpleasant memories of my time as a student. I could even sense the feeling of fear coming back to me – the meaninglessness that I felt during classes in my childhood. What I did remember from school were the relationships I built and the fun we had during projects and during breaks. It got me thinking about how traditional education has shaped me, the kind of education that focused just on testing and content. The constant emphasis on deficits instead of capacities, the hesitation to ask questions, not to look stupid. Back then, we lost the sense of who we are and what our purpose in life was. Learning became a duty rather than a gift, something valuable and something joyful. So I wanted to change this. I felt, if the only currency of success in school is examination results, then we have a real problem in education.

What needs to happen to make education more relevant and meaningful?

There is a huge gap between skills that are required and skills that schools teach to students. In addition, there is also a gap between skills that are required to be successful in life and the requirements for college admission. It’s not an easy problem to solve. We started to talk directly to employers and to our students and parents about the options. A 4-year college course may not be the only way of getting a future-proof education. Writing a good research paper and enrolling in many different online courses and gaining work experience in areas the student feels very passionate about might make a more interesting candidate for future employers. The whole concept of higher education must undergo a change.

After an extensive research trip around the world, your focus at HXLS shifted towards interdisciplinary and project work. How has this approach changed learning at HXLS?

Yes, I traveled around the world and looked at schools like High Tech High and the deeper learning schools network. I felt very strongly about creating a community-bound learning experience with a clearer focus on project-based learning at the core of our work.

So what we do at HXLS is finding issues or problems in our local context and then stitching the curriculum around those questions. It could be getting a bike path in the city, a problem that children care about here. Then we turn the topic ‘bicycles’ into a 6-month project. Students look at bikes from different angles, assemble them, they look at science and maths-related issues. They would learn how women got empowered through bikes, about inventions, and creating green environments. Students would research the future of cities with an emphasis on non-motorized transport, with examples from Amsterdam as a model city. They would gather data and present this data, not just in class but to the local authorities and make a case for change. This is just one example. Another example might be building a bio-diversity index for the city.

The pandemic has forced schools to think about the importance of technology. How does technological innovation impact learning at HXLS? 

For me, the pandemic was very much a pandemic of loneliness. We have seen students and educators getting disconnected. But there are also good things that came out of it. We learned how to collaborate better on the online medium. Earlier we had to think constantly about how students can meet, given their different schedules and locations. Now technology makes this easy. Secondly, access to good resources, may it be science topics or industry experts has become easier too. Particularly for us as a project-based school, connecting with experts and real-life learning experiences is crucial. I think technology also helps us assess our students better. We can better understand where students are on the learning journey. Technology will allow us to personalize learning further as students don’t just have to rely on classroom teaching where everyone receives the same content. Technology definitely is an enabler that supports the independent learning journey, and we will keep exploring these opportunities.

Thank you, Manit!

Learn more about the innovative school and Manit’s work: www.heritagexperiential.org