Mitra said the traditional system of education is largely based
on the necessities created by Britain's colonial empire in which
a vast amount of territory had to be governed by people writing
things on paper and sending them around the world on ships.
Schools turned out clerks who functioned as interchangeable
parts in a vast bureaucracy where the skills of reading, writing
and arithmetic were key. He argues that today's world needs a
new system in which the role of computers in aiding learning is
paramount. To help speed learning, Mitra has recruited hundreds
of "grannies," volunteers from the United Kingdom, many of them
retired teachers, who function more in the role of
"grandparents" than teachers, skypeing into learning
environments around the world, encouraging students to do their
best and praising their achievements. With the TED Prize money,
Mitra intends to build a laboratory, most likely in India, where
he can test his theories through experiments that supplement
schoolwork. He likens it to a "saf