Disappointed with the poor quality of K-12 education provided to children in small town India, in 2010 IIT-Kharagpur and IIM-Ahmedabad alum Arghya Banerjee promoted a model greenfield school named The Levelfield School, in the tier-III town of Suri, West Bengal – Baishali Mukherjee Sited in Suri (pop. 67,864), a small tier-III town 200 km from the bustling megapolis of Kolkata, The Levelfield School, Suri (TLS, estb. 2010) is a promising young K-12 co-ed day school affiliated with the UK-based Cambridge Assessment International Education (CAIE) board. Promoted eight years ago by Arghya Banerjee, an IIT-Kharagpur and IIM-Ahmedabad alum, within a short span of time The Levelfield School, Suri has won encomiums for providing internationally benchmarked, child-centric, stress-free education to its 480 students mentored by ten teachers. A role model greenfield K-12 school for small-town India, The Levelfield School, Suri has been conferred the Sankalp Award (2011) of Intellecap — the advisory division of the Aavishkaar-Intellecap Group, which funds social enterprises in Asia and Africa — for being “the most innovative social enterprise” and was ranked among the Top 50 social businesses by Outlook magazine in 2012. A strong believer in the transformative power of high-quality K-12 education, Banerjee forsook a promising career with Irevna Pvt. Ltd — an equity research company promoted by New York-based Standard and Poor’s Financial Services LLC — and sited his model school in Suri because he believes “children in small towns have the same potential and ability to shine, but want for opportunity”. Hence, the name of the school. Moreover, while working as CEO of Irevna, Banerjee was disappointed with the quality of job applicants, forcing the company to invest time in teaching them logical thinking, succinct writing, and effective communication skills — competencies they should have learnt in school. Therefore in 2008, he resigned from his office in Irevna and promoted The Levelfield School, Suri by investing his life savings in the new venture. “As indicated by its name, The Levelfield School is committed to providing a level playing field to children of small towns vis-a-vis their metropolitan counterparts. In Levelfield, we have completely rejected the rote learning examination-oriented system. We are strongly focused on developing love of reading, logical thinking and social awareness of our children. To this end, we harness the power of unconventional learning media: classic literature, insightful non-fiction, great movies, puzzles and board games to help children learn experientially and develop into lifelong learners,” says Banerjee. To implement this alternative pedagogy Banerjee has designed innovative teaching materials. For instance, the school has created its own library of reading material by simplifying classics such as The Prince and the Pauper and Gulliver’s Travels. The school’s curriculum mandates that every child reads 1,500 pages per year from TLS’ 3,000-volume library. Similarly, critical thinking skills are nurtured through Japanese puzzles such as Nonogram and Shikaku, and social awareness through cinema, documentaries and literature. Moreover, the school has digitised its print books to make them accessible through web browsers and Android/iOS apps. Currently, 12 The…
