In the absence of a holistic approach, today education’s ability to redeem humanity is under severe strain. This is especially pronounced in developing countries like India. Education is India’s greatest strength and its greatest weakness. The wholesome progress India has made in the last few years is due to its accent on education. India has 1.2 million schools, 6.3 million teachers and 290 million students, yet there are millions of children who do not go to school. Nearly 170 million in the age group of 6 to 24 years are not in the education system. The dropout rate is phenomenally high.
Over the last three decades, His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has effectively cracked this difficult conundrum, by bringing in a paradigm shift, both in terms of reaching out to the underprivileged and integrating values into the education system.
Inspired by his vision for value education to all, the Art of Living today runs 86 schools in the tribal and rural belts of India where child labour and poverty are widespread. Nearly 7,500 children from economically backward areas benefit from this initiative every year. But for these schools, these children also would have been in fields, on the road, in factories – everywhere but school.
These schools provide free quality and value-based education to children from the marginalised sections of society. Almost 90 per cent of the students of these schools are first-generation learners; no one in their families ever went to school. One such school in West Bengal is located in a tribal area where the nearest school was not only 8 kilometres away but also had no road to reach it. Another is the rural school located near the international headquarters of the Art of Living in Bangalore that annually educates 2,500 first generation learners from over 45 surrounding villages.
To provide value-based education to children from urban slums, Sri Sri initiated a special project under the banner of Sri Sri Bal Mandir. In addition to poverty, slum children often get caught in a web of crime and violence. With no school to attend, they loiter around, while away their time, and become easy targets for recruitment by local mafias. In reality, the urban slum schools serve a far-reaching peace goal by shielding young minds from unsocial elements
Sri Sri’s approach to empowerment has always been holistic and encompasses all sections of population. His vision for education is no different. Hence, there is a school to train sensitive and socially responsible journalists, a B-School to produce managers with a universal vision, a college to popularise the ancient science of ayurveda, an agricultural institute to propagate environment-friendly cost-effective farming techniques, a heritage school to preserve rich traditions and even a school for performing arts. Sri Sri has also laid the foundation for a multi-disciplinary university to produce tomorrow’s leaders and managers of change who are socially and spiritually inclined.
At the other end of the spectrum of Sri Sri’’s all-compassing educational philosophy are his initiatives to educate young victims of natural disaster and conflicts. Sri Sri started an orphanage-cum-school in Kashmir to take care of young victims of the ongoing militancy, who are soft targets for recruitment into military groups. The school provides free education to over 250 students. These children are also taught skills that help them overcome their painful past.
The Art of Living also runs an orphanage in Sri Lanka for young victims of the deadly tsunami of 2004. In Nagapattinam, India, Sri Sri has started a school to educate children whose lives have been affected by the tsunami.
It would be no exaggeration to say that Sri Sri leaves no stone unturned to achieve his vision of education all. When volatile local situations deterred the Art of Living from establishing schools, he brought nearly 100 young boys from Jammu and Meghalaya to his centre in Bangalore and ensured their education. He has even initiated a literacy drive in flood relief camps in Bihar so that the illiterate can learn how to read and write while passing time in the camps.
Sri Sri has something even for those children who have the access to the best of the educational opportunities. He steps in to attend to that which hides behind their seemingly satisfying learning curve – the stress that robs them of their humanness. The Art of Living has established several public schools in urban areas to ensure an environment of learning for children and young adults that is stress-free. These institutes focus primarily on providing a holistic and experiential learning environment to urban students.
“It’s natural for every parent to want their children to grow up to be well-educated human beings with certain values. They want to see them happy. But the goal of happiness is getting lost in the pursuit of selfish education,” says Sri Sri. Accordingly, Sri Sri’s educational initiatives are focused not only on providing value education, but also on the overall development of the child.
The current system of education has somehow failed to nurture basic human values. “It’s very painful to hear about shootouts, crimes happening in college and school campuses. Such things were not heard off a few years ago. There was certain respect, certain honour and dignity attached to education. That is getting eroded,” he observes. The basic tendency to connect with people and make friends is getting lost somewhere. “If you ask a kid how many friends he or she has in the class, he or she will count on the fingers. Three, four or five in a classroom of 40-50 students! The kids are unable to be friendly with all the 40-50 of their class. Then how do you expect them to be friendly with the world when they come out of school?” asks Sri Sri. “Only an education that can nourish inbuilt virtues can impart true intelligence. It is of no use if your children acquire good education and then begin to look down upon everybody else, including you!”
The time has come for us to create an education system which enhances the capacity of our consciousness. And Sri Sri’s initiatives are oriented towards it. By combining formal education with life skills such as relaxation tools and emotional maturity, children are provided with a conducive and stress-free atmosphere of learning. When a child learns to handle his or her emotions and feelings, it boosts the child’s capacity to digest more, understand more. “Children are made to carry books like a donkey, on their backs, a huge load of books on mostly irrelevant subjects. But we must realise that the goal of education is to increase awareness, not information,” Sri Sri explains.
Another pointer that the education system in India is under strain is the rising number of educated youth turning to crime and terrorism. The need of the hour is a system of education that will channelise youth energy into constructive pursuits. While laying the foundation stone of Sri Sri University in Orissa, which will start admitting students from 2009, Sri Sri said, “The students who passed out from this university would never become terrorists. They will be volunteers who will dedicate their life to society.”
A system of education that harnesses a mind that is free, not obsessed with anything, and neither angry about the past nor anxious about the future alone can be a redeeming factor in the world. And Sri Sri has been single-mindedly promoting just that!