The Higher Education Review

Education is the powerful tool to empower people, to challenge their reasoning power and intellectual capability. Sadly, the present education system encourages a system that favours overemphasis on academic performance, primacy to established ideas without giving an opportunity to question, rigid systems and importance given to rote learning in the pursuit of marks. This has resulted in stifling children's creativity and has sidelined the power of rational, independent as well as scientific thinking.

Though the situations appear quite gloomy, it is refreshing to note that there are certain exceptions to the established norms. There are quite a few institutions which have deviated from the mundane by choosing the less trailed path of using innovative and creative methods and techniques to encourage critical thinking and learning among children, in the process making learning more real and fun-filled. In Mangalore, Centre for Advanced Learning (CFAL) with its capacious and beautiful campus has been creating ripples in the field of education for quite some time now with its students achieving outstanding performance in some of the toughest competitive exams for medical, engineering, math and pure sciences as well as scholarship exams like KVPY, NTSE or International Olympiads.

CFAL whose main aim is to make Math and Science fun and interesting and develop a strong foundational base, has hit the bull's eye tasting extraordinary success despite adopting unconventional methods of teaching students. Recently, one of its

students Prathyush was one among 5 students to represent India has won the silver medal in the International Olympiad in Astronomy & Astrophysics (IOAA-2018). Aditya Prakash represented India in International Math Olympiad (IMO) in 2017 held in Brazil. Many students of CFAL have been consistently topping the examinations in JEE (advanced and main), NEET, CET,
BITSAT, KVPY, NTSE and other pure science entrance exams year after year. Sumith who is pursuing his MS-Phd at Stanford University now was the topper of Karnataka
in JEE-Advanced 2014. For the past 10 years, the highest numbers of selections in the district in the scholarship examinations KVPY and NTSE (National Talent Search Examination) are from CFAL.
Several ex-students of CFAL are pursuing higher studies in some of the most prestigious institutes in India and across the world and frequently come back to teach and mentor their juniors.

"CFAL whose main aim is to make Math and Science fun and interesting and develop a strong foundational base, has hit the bull's eye tasting extraordinary
success despite adopting unconventional methods of teaching students"

Developing passion for learning

'Be your best!' is the tagline of the institute that guides it in its journey of pursuing the uncommon and uncharted
path towards excellence. Severine Rosario, Program Coordinator at CFAL is quite candid when she says "Our aim is not to train students to get good marks - we
believe that marks will come as a byproduct of the deep understanding of the subject. "Be your best" is our motto and our focus is to help students excel in whatever they do.

Since the inception, CFAL has adopted a holistic and open-ended approach to education. "We started in a small way in 2009 and from the beginning we focused on small classes. For 1-6th standard students, we have lot of puzzles,

games, makers space, experiments, lab, outdoor work, logical reasoning, activity-based learning etc. which help children to think beyond textbooks and build a solid foundation. Students from classes 7 to 10
are taught Advanced Mathematics, Advanced Sciences and General mental ability (GMAT). Understanding of concepts and application of thought is emphasized. From
Xth standard onwards, the centre focuses on competitive exams and creates an atmosphere of excellence. We try to inculcate the spirit of self-learning and peer learning among children, which works wonderfully in bringing out their inherent talents," says Vijay Moras, another Program Coordinator at the centre.

No Shortcut to Success

The founder of CFAL is Severine Rosario felt that a sturdy conceptual foundation, proactive teachers and proper guidance are needed to help children achieve greater
heights. This thought process resulted in the creation of CFAL and since then CFAL has been consistently achieving amazing results and providing an appropriate platform for students to excel by giving vent to their creativity.

Vijay Moras says there is no shortcut to success and CFAL and ELC's emergence as an 'institute with a difference' is the cumulative effect of the uncompromising
standards of teaching and creating the best environment for learning. "Most schools in the region focus primarily
on board marks but this does not enable the child's creative potential. Many parents believe that the pursuit
of school marks is of utmost importance but realize too late that these marks do not help the student get into the
best institutions in the country or abroad. Our teachers and creative environment make learning an interesting
activity. We try each day to live up to our motto of 'Be your best'!" That in short sums up the tremendous success achieved by CFAL in a very short period.