PREVIEW

The Beautiful Tree: A Personal Journey Into How the World's Poorest People Are Educating Themselves (Book/ Hardcover)

Product Overview

Everyone from Bono to the United Nations is looking for a miracle to bring schooling within reach of the poorest children on Earth. James Tooley found one hiding in plain sight. While researching private schools in India for the World Bank, and worried he was doing little to help the poor, Tooley wandered into the slums of Hyderabad's Old City. Shocked to find it overflowing with tiny, parentfunded schools filled with energized students, he set out to discover if schools like these could help achieve universal education. Named after Mahatma Gandhi's phrase for the schools of pre-colonial India, The Beautiful Tree recounts Tooley's journey from the largest shanty town in Africa to the hinterlands of Gansu, China. It introduces readers to the families and teachers who taught him that the poor are not waiting for educational handouts. They are building their own schools and educating themselves.

About the Author(s)

James Tooley is a professor of education policy at Newcastle University. There he is the director of the E. G. West Centre, which is dedicated to choice, competition, and entrepreneurship in education. He has done extensive work in demonstrating the benefits of private education for low-income families. Much of his work has focused on identifying ways to make private education more accessible and to facilitate its growth in the developing world, especially among the poor. Tooley has worked for over 25 years in educational development, including years of on-location experience in the developing world. He has served as a researcher at Manchester and Oxford Universities. His books include The Beautiful Tree: A Personal Journey Into How the World's Poorest People Are Educating Themselves (2009), The Miseducation of Women (2003) and Reclaiming Education (2000). Tooley currently lives in Hyderabad, India, where he continues his lifelong work on educating the world's poor.