Barefoot, But Not Brain-dead: How Barefoot College Is Ruining the Education System (in the Best Way Possible!
Ever heard of a college that disqualifies you for having a master’s or a PhD? Sounds unthinkable, right? So was Bunker Roy’s vision until he built it. A system where people come to learn, not to earn a certificate or chase a salary. There exists a college in India that, quite alarmingly, does not care about your GPA or LinkedIn profile. In fact, you get disqualified for being overqualified.
It’s called Barefoot College, and for over 40 years, it’s been quietly ruining the modern education industrial complex, in the best way possible.
Bunker Roy, the man behind this academic rebellion, could’ve taken the usual route: shiny degrees, air-conditioned think tanks, and panel discussions with lukewarm coffee. Instead, he walked around in a village, and he wasn’t met with garlands; the villagers were certain that he was either running from police or had failed a government exam, as if these places are where you disappear, a hiding place.
While the rest of the world was busy building ivory towers and elite syllabi, Barefoot College was doing something radical like treating poor, illiterate, often invisible people like they were capable of learning, building, fixing, and leading.
The place operates on a threatening idea: that knowledge matters more than degrees and dignity more than data. Imagine what would happen if that mindset spread. Universities might have to stop charging lakhs a year for information you could probably learn on YouTube. An entire education system built on monetary terms would collapse; everyone would want actual knowledge instead of a certain degree.
At Barefoot, the students are grandmothers, dropouts, and women behind veils, and quite interestingly, they’re the ones building solar panels, repairing water systems, and designing zero-waste villages. Engineers without engineering degrees. Professionals without certifications. Mechanics who’ve never touched a textbook. Women who were never supposed to speak in public are now running their own radio stations.
Out of these women, some are solar engineers who are affectionately known as solar mamas, whose faces hide behind hazy veils but clearer visions than any educated, sophisticated elite of society. Not only do they understand circuits, but they have also electrified a whole village!
And then there’s the waste program. Barefoot College created Rajasthan’s first zero-waste village not through flashy campaigns or heavily branded panels, but by getting people to sort their trash at the source. Quite simple, isn’t it? Maybe we’ve just been overthinking the basics all along.
The college also houses a sanitary napkin production unit led by five women from the most marginalized communities in Rajasthan. They didn’t wait for menstrual health awareness week to roll around. They just got to work.
Even their media unit is run by a “Barefoot Cameraman” who trained other rural youth in still and film photography. These footages could be found in actual documentaries. Barefoot College turned film school into a community archive.
Over 2,000 Barefoot Communicators have been trained to use traditional puppet theater to talk about everything from caste to sanitation to climate change. Because sometimes a dancing papier-mâché goat can explain gender equality better than a TED Talk.
Of course, critics say it’s all too “localized.” That it doesn’t “scale.” Which is hilarious, because this supposedly unscalable model has solar-electrified over 1,146 villages globally. That’s a lot of light bulbs for an institution run by “unqualified” or “unprofessional” people.
Perhaps the most dangerous thing Barefoot College teaches is that people don’t need saving; they need resources. And trust. That last one is especially not easy to come by in a world where development often looks like a one-way street lined with consultants and PowerPoints.
There’s even irony in the name: Barefoot College. It sounds unpolished, unfinished, and too raw to be respectable. But that’s the point. While mainstream education polishes resumes, this place sharpens real-world tools. It doesn’t clean up accents; it cleans up villages. It doesn’t simulate problem-solving; it solves problems.
So yes, maybe it’s time to worry. Because if more people start learning the way Barefoot teaches, degrees might lose their shine. Expensive tuition, big words, and inflated resumes could finally fall out of fashion.
If curiosity starts mattering more than credentials, what happens to the gatekeepers?
After all, this is a college where the gates are open, the teachers are former students, and the only entry requirement is the willingness to learn.
Maybe we don’t need new systems after all, maybe we just need to unplug the old, overcomplicated ones.
By: Ishi Pandey
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