| With globalization and changing world dynamics, continuously enhancing the school curriculum in India has become critical if India is to enable its students to develop the cognitive abilities and problem-solving skills necessary to be successful. This study documents the student leadership skills in selected alternative education and mainstream schools in India and explores the implications for enhancing school curriculum in India to better address the changing needs of public education in the context of a global economy.The literature review explores alternative education and describes alternative education schools in India. The study uses the Leadership Skills Inventory (LSI) (Karnes & Chauvin, 1985), a standardized instrument that measures leadership skills along nine dimensions in children and youth.This exploratory study describes three mainstream and three alternative private schools and their philosophies. It also offers a comparative analysis of leadership skills in India in both mainstream and alternative education schools. The alternative school students consistently scored higher in all dimensions. The differences were statistically significant on combined leadership dimensions and two of the nine individual dimensions. Parental socioeconomic status information did not appear to have any significant difference impact on the leadership skills. The results, however, cannot be generalized due to the small sample size, the limited number of schools sampled, and the predominantly middle class composition of the sample.In future, the scope of this study should be expanded to see which factors characteristic of alternative education and mainstream schools in India promote the students' leadership skills. The profound changes occurring in India as a result of globalization present an opportunity to explore whether Indian mainstream schools can learn from Indian alternative schools when it comes to helping students assume leadership positions in a global economy. |
