Date: February 28, 2025
Venue: The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Vadodara
Dr. Beloo Mehra, Director, BhāratShakti, was invited as an expert speaker at a National Seminar on Ideas of India’s Eminent Educational Thinkers and Transformative Learning through NEP2020, jointly organized by the School of International Studies, Central University of Gujarat, and the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Public Research and International Studies, The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda.
Dr. Mehra in her talk titled ‘Sri Aurobindo’s Insights on National Education and NEP2020: Hits and Misses’ focused her analysis on the relevance of the educational ideas and perspectives of Sri Aurobindo in the light of NEP2020. She highlighted the point that many aspects of NEP 2020 seem to reflect well the vision of Integral Education as given by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, especially when we read the policy’s emphasis on holistic education, greater decentralization in decision-making, institutional autonomy, greater curricular choice, rethinking student assessment, revitalizing teacher education etc. But a deeper and critical look at NEP 2020 in the light of some fundamentals of Integral Education also reveals several areas where major gaps exist – both in terms of application, and more significantly in acknowledging some of the fundamentals of Integral Education.
Dr. Mehra brought the audience’s attention to two specific points – the ideal of holistic education and the role of teacher preparation in order to highlight where NEP2020 falls short. With regard to the first, she explained that the NEP clearly aspires to rethink curriculum and pedagogy in a way which will facilitate an individual to cultivate his mental, intellectual, ethical, dynamic and practical, aesthetic parts, his vital and physical being – something we find emphasised strongly in Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s educational vision. But emphasising development of these various parts of the being merely for their development sake and without recognising the need for integrating these parts around the central truth of the being will fail to recognise an important purpose of all good education, namely to facilitate an inner harmony in the being.
She emphasised that a truly national education for India, one which is national in spirit as per the vision of Sri Aurobindo, must recognise the truth that the inmost self, a portion of the universal Divinity, is the essential truth of an individual being. Recognising that this divine portion within expresses itself through the outer instruments of mind, life-energy, and body, all efforts to provide appropriate care, growth and development of a child’s outer instruments – body, life and mind – undergo a radical shift in their purpose and orientation. This shift brings a deeper dimension and a greater sacredness to the whole enterprise of education making it truly aligned with the Indian spirit. Education thus also begins to facilitate a deeper sense of harmony in the individual.
With regard to the aspect of teacher preparation, Dr. Mehra highlighted that the focus in NEP2020 is primarily on improving teachers’ outer skills and learning new technological tools. Without denying the need for this, we must recognise that the policy document completely excludes any discussion on the inner dimension of a teacher’s work. One of the most basic goals in an integral approach to education is to attend to the inner needs of every individual student. The education imparted should not be impersonal and group-oriented. It has to be sensitive to the total personality of each individual child. Therefore, the task of a teacher becomes much more exacting. A teacher’s own inner work is a key factor in facilitating students’ inner un-folding. And it is this part that is completely ignored in the NEP2020 document as it stands at present.
Dr. Mehra’s presentation led to some interesting questions from the audience members. Dr. Mehra also presented copy of her latest book ‘Antaryatra: Soul Journeys’ to Dr. Anirban Ganguly, Director, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Research Foundation, and Ms. Jyotiben Thanki, an eminent scholar of Sri Aurobindo Studies, educationist and former advisor to Children’s Research University.
Following the 2-day seminar, Dr. Mehra along with a few other scholars of Sri Aurobindo Studies, was also invited to attend a workshop on March 1 in which several project ideas were proposed and discussed regarding the future of Sri Aurobindo Studies at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda.
Audio recording of Dr. Mehra’s talk at the National Seminar will be available soon.