Strengthening Our Connections
April 2006
Banner photo: ©MIMOTITO/Digital Vision/Getty Images
Education Seminar in India
A one-day seminar "Towards Humanistic Education: Review of Experiments in Education," organized by the Indian Council of Gandhian Studies (New Delhi), Bharat Soka Gakkai and the Madhavimandiram Lok Seva Trust founded by Dr. G. Ramachandran, was held at the Victoria Jubilee Town Hall in Trivandrum, Kerala State, on January 28, 2006.
Two schools made presentations on "Experiments in Learning." Principal Tarla Nanavat of the K.P.M. Approach to Children: Sri Atmananda Memorial School (AVEF) shared her school's educational philosophy of nurturing the development of the individual, benefiting the world and recognizing that everybody has a stake in education. Vice Principal June Jones introduced an educational experiment at Pallikoodam, in Kottayam, spearheaded by the Pallikoodam of Corpus Christi Education Society. This experiment emphasizes the benefits of group study activities, based on mastery of the students' own mother language, which may often be a minority language and not one of India's 15 official languages.
Following the seminar, the Mahatma Gandhi People's Welfare Trust conferred its fifth Ramachandran-Ikeda Award on Kerala Harijan Sevak Sangh, a welfare organization. The award, commemorating the 100th birth anniversary of Dr. G. Ramachandran and the 75th year of the Soka Gakkai's foundation, recognized Kerala Harijan Sevak Sangh's work in providing educational scholarships to socially disadvantaged youth. Kerala University's Vice Chancellor Dr. M. K. Ramachandran Nair presented the award to the organization's chairman Prof. N. Gopalkrishnan Nair.
