B
From Venkata Rao in Visakhapatnam
At the Gayatri Vidya Parishad Junior College premises (Ba-Bapu Bhavan), Visakhapatnam, Sri Saraswati Puja was celebrated and a symposium was organised on ?Bharatiya Culture through Education?. Bharatiya Shikshan Mandal Visakhapatnam Branch convened the programme and it was conducted under the combined auspices of different educational, cultural, literary and social organisations.
Prof. D. Visweswaram, National General Secretary of Bharatiya Shikshan Mandal, presided over the function. All the speakers expressed their concern that education is being politicized today so much that there is a threat to the very Indianness.
Shri V.K.Malavya Sarma, an educationist, elaborated on the salient features of Bharatiya education and deplored the erosion of values in the present society as a result of the negligence towards educational reforms on the part of the governments after Independence and not caring for inculcating values through education.
Prof. G.A. Sarma of Bharatiya Vidya Kendram gave a description of the education that our country needs and explained to which extent the National Curriculum Framework for School Education prepared by NCERT during NDA rule satisfied the needs of the country and fulfilled our aspirations.
Shri U.A. Narasimham, Honorary President of Andhra Pradesh Upadhyaya Sangham expressed his concern at the present government giving free hand to private educational institutions in commercializing education. Praising the NDA government he said it tried its best to streamline the fee structure to keep it within the reach of common man.
Prof. Visweswaram narrated how our rich educational system was destroyed by Islamic invasions and Macaulay'seducational system introduced during the British rule. He expressed agony that the curriculum prepared by the NCERT after intense efforts for more than two years involving reputed educationists of the country is being changed by the present ruling UPA government on non-academic considerations.
The speakers representing other organisations in the symposium were Shri T. Lakshmi Kumar, National Council Member, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarti Parishad, Dr. K. Viswanath, State Secretary, Prajna Bharati, Dr. N.Srinivasa Rao, President, Bharat Vikas Parishad, Visakhapatnam, Dr. K.Ghana Shyamala Prasada Rao, President, Sanskar Bharati, Andhra and Karnataka region, Shri C. Sundara Rao, President, Praja Spandana (Visakhapatnam), Shri Tata Viswanadha Sastry, Telugu Bhasha Samvardhana Samithi, Prof. K.P.R.Vittala Murty, Member, Andhra Pradesh Vidya Samrakshana Udyama Samithi, Prof. P. Somaraju, Secretary, Gayathri Vidya Parishad.
It was also resolved to authorize the conveners to communicate these resolutions to Shri Arjun Singh, Minister for Human Resource Development (GoI), with copies to the Prime Minister and President of India.
(Add. 29-35-7, Gollalapalem, Visakhapatnam-530 017)
