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Dr. Yogesh Kulkarni is Vigyan Ashram’s Executive Director. Dr. S. S. Kalbag established Vigyan Ashram in 1983 to study ancient Indian philosophy. It is a modern version of the old Gurukul system. Vigyan Ashram advocates for intelligence development, not inheritance. Learning philosophy is the foundation of Vigyan Ashram. Dr. Yogesh Kulkarni shared the success story of Vigyan Ashram. This was during a conversation with Ms. Harleen Kaur Makhija. She is from ENTECH Magazine.
How do you believe Vigyan Ashram’s philosophy of development through education and education through development has shaped your approach to education?
Vigyan Ashram is located in Pabal village. It is approximately 60 km from Pune. We started Vigyan Ashram in Pabal. This was because of various issues in the area. These issues included water, irrigation, and electricity. We believed we could solve these problems in Pabal and apply them to any of India’s 600,000 villages. At Vigyan Ashram, we don’t primarily adhere to an ancient educational system; instead, we adopt a natural approach to learning. Learning by doing is the natural way. It is the same way in which we all learn our mother tongue. For instance, a 2-year-old child begins speaking in his mother tongue. But even after 10 years of schooling, he is unable to learn other languages. He learned his mother tongue through natural means.
At Vigyan Ashram, we strive to incorporate the natural method of learning, which involves learning through hands-on experience, into our formal education system. Everything in your daily life, such as cooking, swimming, using a computer, or driving, is something you learn through hands-on experience. You don’t need to attend school, college, or take an exam to learn many of the skills we need. We can confidently say we can do it by ourselves, and we will never forget it in our lives, so that is the importance of learning while doing.
Community Development through Education
In order to involve the children in the learning process, we provide them with an activity. For example, we could assign some children an activity and then engage them in various forms of activity-based learning or project-based learning. However, in a resource-constrained country like India, it is not feasible to do an activity solely for the purpose of learning. Once we complete an activity, we discard it. If you go to colleges or technical institutes, you will find many of the jobs piled up as scrap, which is of no use. Therefore, we don’t believe in engaging in activities merely for their own sake. Our philosophy is to learn by doing.
We engage our students in community development activities. Whenever we see a lack of development around us, we give this development activity as a project to our students. We also offer it as a hands-on learning experience. This fosters development within the community. It also enhances the learning experience for the students. This concept is known as “development through education” and “education through development philosophy.”
What are some of the key challenges you have faced in shifting from the traditional classroom model, and how have you worked to overcome those barriers?
First of all, we adopted the philosophy of learning while doing. Our founder, Dr. Kalbag, made this decision based on his past experiences. We have chosen to adhere to the natural method of learning, which involves learning by doing. The challenge we face is basically the teachers who work with us—the instructors who teach the students who come to Vigyam Ashram. They have a background in traditional schooling methods, such as learning through books. Academic training for these teachers, whose upbringing happened through a book-centered education, is a major challenge. We need to shift them from the book-centered education method to the work-centered education method. We have developed a methodology to train them over time.
How do you measure the success and impact of Vigyan Ashram’s unique educational approach, and what metrics or outcomes are you most proud of?
In 1983, we established Vigyan Ashram in Pabal, a small village 70 km from Pune. We started with a few youth. The Vigyan Ashram is an educational laboratory where we conduct experiments. In the laboratory, you always focus on the weakest link in education. The weakest link is the school dropouts, who are not interested in education. These students create trouble at home. Typically, Vigyan Ashram attracts this type of student. These students, when they come to Vigyan Ashram, learn by doing. Many of them became entrepreneurs and innovators. Vigyan Ashram, with the help of students, has developed many technologies. The effectiveness of this educational method is evident in the thousands of students who have graduated from Vigyan Ashram over the years. I would argue that the primary success of Vigyan Ashram lies in its role as a laboratory for education.
Changing Formal Education System
We are introducing the Vigyan Ashram program into the formal school system, specifically the regular 8th to 10th grade schools, where students study mathematics, science, history, geography, and languages. We want to integrate it into mainstream education using the same program and method. The experiment began in 1987. In 1990, the program began in three schools. It went to 14 schools in 2001, then to 23 schools, and now the program is running in more than 300 schools in Maharashtra. It is being adopted as part of the core curriculum in schools. It’s part of the national school qualification framework. This program’s principles are now part of the new education policy. I believe that the experiments we conducted at Vigyan Ashram as a laboratory have made their way to the national level, and the fact that many schools are adopting them is a testament to our success.
Stay tuned for Part II of this interview in July 2024 issue.
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