Viveka Vidyalayam: School of Reason

When advocate Ancha Bapa Rao, Secretary General of the Rationalist Association of India, and Editor of the Telugu language monthly New Humanist, considered the options for his children’s education in his home town of Chirala, he was so dissatisfied with the local schools that he changed his profession and started his own. Viveka Vidyalayam (“school of reason”), the Humanist school Bapa Rao established in 1993, now has 150 students and 14 teachers, accommodated in its own spacious campus. A third of the students are boarders. Many come from impoverished backgrounds and are unable to pay school fees; they are supported by subsidies. Despite its visible Humanist identity, the school is developing a good reputation and Bapa Rao himself is currently head of the District Teachers Association. Not having been set up as a commercial enterprise, however, the school has yet to achieve financial self-sufficiency.

Traditional schools in the Indian context concentrate on preparing children for exams, insist on rote learning, and provide little scope for personality development, sports, or cultivation of the arts. Corporal punishment is the norm, and pupils are subject to strict discipline by teachers. As the most sought-after professionals in Indian society are doctors, engineers, management graduates and now computer software engineers, children are virtually obliged to consider one of these professions: their inclinations and abilities do not matter. It is no wonder, then, that schools flaunt their credentials based on the number of pupils they have helped to enter engineering and medical colleges. As a sign of the times, the government of Andhra Pradesh has even considered no longer offering history as a subject at the 10+2 level (age 16). Only widespread protests persuaded the government to withdraw this foolish plan.

The first step for Viveka Vidyalayam was to establish a child-centred learning process, where the child is respected by teachers as an individual, with his or her own pace of learning. The teacher, rather than the child, is made responsible in greater measure for the success of the learning process. Children are not punished, and are not burdened with homework, so they may enjoy their evenings with their parents and friends. Teaching is in both Telugu (the language of the state) and in English. At school, pupils are encouraged to interact freely with their teachers, to ask questions, and to participate in discussions in the classroom. The school also reintroduced much neglected “moral science” or ethics classes and children are encouraged to think of morality in non- religious terms. Pioneering literature prepared by an earlier (now almost defunct) Humanist school in the state, Charvaka Vidyalayam, is used in moral science classes: the Indian moral science resources have a heavy religious orientation. Miracle exposure classes are organized to help young minds develop the faculty of critical intelligence. Most importantly, children are encouraged to develop a sense of self-worth, to enjoy learning, and to find fulfilment in what they can achieve rather than frantically join the rat race and meet society’s demands and expectations. The few batches of school students who have completed schooling at Viveka Vidyalayam have found that they are in fact well prepared and confident to face the challenges they encounter in society.

Babu Gogineni