Net­works

In the long term, lila.school is to become a network of small learning centers. The indi­vidual centers will remain con­nected by common purpose, but should stay as autonomous and agile as pos­sible and therefore have a maximum size of about 80 stu­dents and 8 learning guides.

In con­junction with this, with the help of our digital learning platform, we also want the course system to become a larger network far beyond the realm of the school. Our aim is to facil­itate lifelong learning and teaching for the widest pos­sible audience and to con­tribute to the decen­tral­ization of edu­cation. In this way, a new struc­tural base will be created, from which dif­ferent existing projects and com­mu­nities will be sup­ported, new ones will be made pos­sible, and all of them will be con­nected in a large, common network. A com­mercial model for the use of the platform will also provide a way to cross-finance the learning centers in the long term.

These net­works, in turn, are them­selves part of a global movement of self-directed education.

Lib­erate learning

Inter­na­tionally, many ini­tia­tives are already on the path of self-directed learning. In Austria, there are hardly any such offers, espe­cially for stu­dents of high school age. With lila.school, a learning center is now being created in Vienna that lives and develops this idea and thus also shows that school edu­cation can be adapted to the further devel­opment and current state of society.

We see the lib­er­ation of learning as an essential key to changing con­sciousness and society. If we humans want to develop our full potential, we must be able to shape our learning indi­vid­ually and freely.

Check out our approach to find out what ideas we’re aligned with. In the learning formats, you will find out how we implement these ideas.

Need for change

Many people feel that the existing edu­cation system is no longer ade­quate. There are many reasons for this.

School edu­cation focuses pre­dom­i­nantly on aca­demic knowledge transfer and job-related qual­i­fi­cation, neglecting other aspects of being human. Due to a lack of openness to the outside, i.e. the lack of involvement of external actors in the edu­ca­tional process, there is little con­nection to “real life”. The low rel­e­vance of the content to the actual interests and ques­tions of the stu­dents leads to a per­ceived lack of meaning. Fear, frus­tration and a lack of moti­vation on the part of the stu­dents (and teachers) are the result; the lack of moti­vation to learn is com­pen­sated for by pressure. The dom­inant standard is per­for­mance ori­en­tation, not the devel­opment of indi­vidual potential.

A high degree of bureau­cra­ti­zation and stan­dard­ization, accom­panied by rigid hier­ar­chies and power struc­tures, makes deep change almost impos­sible, and also entails the sep­a­ration of all par­tic­i­pants (stu­dents, teachers, parents, providers, author­ities). Despite the large financial investment, edu­ca­tional stan­dards are declining.

Ideas and sci­en­tific backing for new ways have been around for a long time, but the changes needed are too pro­found and the existing struc­tures too rigid to be solved by attempts at reform. More and more people therefore want alter­na­tives to public sector ser­vices. We want to create such an alter­native with lila.school.