Seminar on ‘Social Entrepreneurship in Education’

Seminar on ‘Social Entrepreneurship in Education’ 

New Delhi, Dec. 19: A Seminar on ‘The Role of Social Entrepreneurship in Education’ was jointly organized by Campus Around the Corner and  Prajapita Brahma Kumaris Ishwariya Vishwa Vidyalaya, both non-profit organizations at Brahma Kumaris institution’s Om Shanti Retreat Centre, Pataudi Road, Gurgaon last Saturday.

The aim of the Seminar was to highlight on the need and relevance of value education, applied spirituality and  models like the Brahma Kumaris & the Campus Around to bridge the gap between textbook driven learning and real-life situations and  to promote a kind of social responsibility in the field of education as part of the mainstream education which would eventually become a tradition.

The Seminar was attended by select & committed principals, teachers, academicians & educationists from NCR Delhi. A vast array of social initiatives intended to help children pursue their passion was presented to the audience and were debated extensively. Keeping up with the tradition, lamp lighting ceremony was graced by the presence of Rajyogini BK Shukla, Director of Brahma Kumaris Retreat Center; BK Sunderlal, Ex-Education Officer, Govt of Delhi; Mr Chetan Thakkar, Social Entrepreneur from Mumbai; Mrs Indubala, noted Educationist etc.

The Seminar commenced with a welcome & keynote address by Shri S Muralidharan, a technologist & entrepreneur turned social activist currently spearheading Campus Around as its Chief Strategist. He stressed the importance of engaging all segments of society in terms of developing ideas, structures, processes and conducive environment as a key to excellence in research, capacity-building in the field of education.

Dr. Manju Gupta, a Gynecologist of Bara Hindu Rao Hospital delivered a talk on the need for ‘Promoting Freedom of Choice in Children – Parenting Skill’. The power and relevance of meditation in the context of the modern lifestyle was demonstrated by BK Ranjana, Faculty of Omshanti Retreat Center in her own inimitable style which was appreciated by one and all.

BK Sushant, National Coordinator, Media Wing of Brahma Kumaris, speaking on the ‘Role of Value Education and Spirituality for Building a Better Society’ said that building better society pre-supposes building better individuals with balanced development of scientific, technical & vocational skills along with strong creative, intuitive, moral & spiritual orientation. For this, value education & spirituality are indispensable, he stressed.

Shri Vijay GR Rajan, the Chief Evangelist & Research Scholar introduced the genesis of the Campus Around model and emphasized the need for adopting well researched and time tested international framework for community involvement in education by building an intelligent networking system as a permanent feature of the mainstream education rather than a one of acts of parental involvement in the classroom.

During the Seminar, a platform was provided to emerging entrepreneurs to present their ideas/solutions in the field of education:

First among them was Shri Chetan Thakkar, Chief Strategist of Maher Eduworld, an educational solutions provider, introduced Hello Science – India’s First Weekly Science Tabloid (for school children) which was the brainchild of an IITian and teacher.

Mr Thakkar concluded his session by explaining the concept of Dermatoglyphics Multiple Intelligence Test (DMIT), an innovative technology to help identify the Intelligence, Emotional, Adversity, Spiritual and Cultural Quotients of children for better guidance and grooming.

Shri Ashwani Sharma from Kota introduced a unique handwriting improvement programme which shows instant results and drastic improvement in the handwriting of children. As part of this sessionShri Aswani Sharma explained in details the genesis and need for a tabloid like Hello Science of this nature to foster scientific temper in the minds of children which was well received by the audience.

This entrepreneurial presentation session was concluded with a pitch by Shri Ashish Mehta, Founder of Inflex Learning, Mumbai about the life skills programme that they are working towards launching for the benefit of children and corporates alike. He further explained Inflex’s life-skill programmes on public speaking and on inculcating financial discipline among children.

Shri Rakesh Dhir, an entrepreneur, a mentor of value education to premier schools in Delhiand owner of schools in the NCR region, lamented the apathy of the current competition driven and stress generating education system that demotivates the young generation. He reiterated the need for imparting value education which requires the involvement of all the members of the community.

Smt Indu Bala, an Educator, Member, NCERT Expert Panel & former Principal of DTEA School with over 4 decades of teaching/administration experience in the mainstream education presented her paper on ‘Campus Around as a Catalyst for Change’.

In her paper, she strongly advocated for the Campus Around model as it had the necessary technical, value educational and community initiative infra-structure to act as a support system to enrich the students knowledge and experience and also help teachers to keep themselves abreast of the current trends in their respective fields.

The Seminar had evoked interest in many of the participating schools who invited Campus Around the Corner to perform feasibility study to explore the implementation of the model for improving the quality of education using the community driven intelligent networking system as a catalyst for sustainable change.