Newlane Manifesto
Newlane University is mission driven. Read the manifesto we wrote around the time of our founding. We use these ideas as a northstar to influence all our decisions.
1
ONE
Education should be available & accessible to every person on earth
Making quality education inaccessible or exclusive is immoral.
Education belongs in the same category as shelter, clean water, and basic food.
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two
Education should be disconnected from geography
Students should be able to learn anything from anywhere on earth. With few exceptions, tying education to geography is a form of exclusion.
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three
Education should be disconnected from a schedule
The most effective time to learn something is when the student is ready, not when the teacher or institution is available.
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Four
Education shouldn’t be admission- or permission-based, but freely available upon the asking
The current admission-based system is a vestige of a scarcity model that could only fit a limited number of seats in a classroom. No one should have to be admitted or ask permission to learn a subject.
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five
Education should not have a prescribed completion time
The amount of time it takes to learn something shouldn’t be decided before hand; some students can learn something in minutes that will take others days or years to learn.
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six
Education should not be set to a specific time period in a person’s life
It should be a process like eating, drinking, and exercise: continual, habitual, and evolving. Students should not be categorized or limited by what they have studied or learned to date.
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seven
Education should not be competitive or judged by other students’ achievements
Students should only be assessed on whether they have mastered the stated objective or ‘not yet’. Removing competition decreases the incentive for cheating or cutting corners.
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eight
Educational records, including learning achievements, grades, transcripts, credentials & degrees should be owned & managed by the student rather than an institution.
Students should be able to move freely among any learning institution or organization at anytime or for any reason.
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nine
Educational records should include universally understandable,
useful, and verifiable documentation of student mastery of explicit learning objectives, rather than an institutional stamp attesting to completion of a vague curriculum.
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ten
Education should not have a prescribed way of teaching
Prevalent teaching approaches are often culturally, gender or socio-economically biased. While clear and explicit learning objectives can be universally agreed upon, the manner in which these are achieved should be as diverse as the student body.
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eleven
Educational learning paths should be personalized
and as varied and diverse as the students pursuing them.
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twelve
Education should not be at the service of institutions, but at the service of learning
Embarking on an online degree program at our university offers the flexibility and convenience needed to pursue your educational goals alongside work and personal commitments.