Do we really need a school to learn?

School is an establishment where young children as young as 5 years start spending their life till they become adult twenty plus years. All of us assume that, they get groomed by their teachers to mould them into better human beings who can shoulder various responsibilities in their life. If we analyze properly, the prime and productive age of our children is spent in the schools. Is it worth spending so many years in the school? As long as someone knows how to read and write is it not possible to get education staying back home.

The argument can be in its favour as well as against the idea of having formally to go to the school to get education something like distance education which is picking up around the world. But can distance education substitute the learning that students get back in the schools.  It is not the question of academics /curriculum that we are taking about, this may be achieved staying home and studying but what about social learning/wholesome education where most of the life is to be spent in the social circus, dealing with different individuals whether one works in a business company or as a politician or in any government organization there are no exceptions one lands up dealing with people. School is the place where our children are taught all these as they get to interact with different individual with their own unique personalities day after day for as long as they are in the school. Can a person studying at home will be able to acquire the skills to handle these situations?

The great people who shook the world in their own field like William Shakespeare, Albert Einstein, and Bill Gates etc did not have smooth schooling. All of them simply hated schools. Going by their biography they were problematic children in schools and had to change many schools .Many others simply had basic education yet they became the most celebrated writers, scholars etc. So where do we strike the balance between formal schooling and informal learning own their own.

Further if turn to the history of education especially in India where Gurukul system existed and monastic education in Tibet, Bhutan and many other Buddhist countries and Madrasas in Muslim countries the children are literarily separated from their parents and sent to these places for education while they are still very young. They are bound to follow the tough rules and regulations, sometimes very harsh punishment where they will have to bear from their gurus and seniors. They cannot raise their voices because there is no one to listen to; they survive digesting everything whether it is good or bad. This system still continues in many parts of the world. Is this system of education has produced exceptional human beings? I definitely do not think so.

Then what could be the best form of the education.  I definitely feel that we need more research, analysis and synthesizing the hypothesis what may be the best form of the education. It necessarily need not be going to school for the 20 plus year to mould ones character which is as of now universally accepted as the best form of the education.