A society associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) educational wing “Vidya Bharati”, which runs Sarvhitkari Vidya Mandir schools across the country, is now planning to open an English learning academy around Chandigarh for its teachers serving in northern states, including Punjab.
The RSS-affiliated body is also planning to expand its network of informal education through “Bal Sanskar Kendras” by setting up as many as 1,000 such centres in border areas to “teach values” to the students and to make them aware of “drug menace” and “religious conversions”.
Punjab Sarvhitkari Educational Society (SES) runs as many as 123 schools in districts across Punjab and in the Union Territory of Chandigarh.
Claiming it to be the “largest non-government organisation (NGO) in the world”, Punjab SES website reads – “It organises workshops, seminars, conferences and capacity building programmes to promote the standard of education as per the need of the times.”
Punjab SES general secretary Navdeep Shekhar has no qualms in admitting that Sarvhitkari Vidya Mandir schools are educational offshoots of RSS, but asserts that “we don’t implement RSS agenda and are not dependent on RSS for schools’ functioning”.
Asserting that regional preferences were always accorded top priority, he told The Indian Express, “Punjabi is not at all being ignored in our schools in Punjab. States like Haryana and UP may have been promoting Hindi in these schools there, but that is not the case in Punjab. If in our schools, half of the students chant ‘Radhe Radhe’ and other half say ‘Bole so Nihal’, what can we do? We can only try to bring in uniformity in an educational institute.”
Pointing out that English was one of the most sought-after language in Punjab, Shekhar said the hullabaloo over Punjabi language was “misplaced” as “parents want their wards to be proficient in English”.
This story was originally published in indianexpress.com. Read the full story here .
