Vidhya Bharati : Largest educational network in Bharat

Vidya Bharati, the largest non governmental educational network in Bharat currently runs over 18,749 schools at the nursery, primary and secondary levels and has over 24 lakhs students under its tutelage and employ over 98,700 teachers. The Vidya Bharati controls 60 colleges, which offer graduate and post-graduate education, and 25 other institutions of higher education. The organisation also runs two teacher-training colleges. Of the 18,749 schools, about 5,000 are recognised by and affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) or the respective State Education Boards.

In the schools in the Vidya Bharati network, apart from the academic content of the instruction there is a core curriculum, which is drawn up by the Vidya Bharati and comprises six subjects: physical education, yoga, music, Sanskrit, moral and spiritual education and sanskriti gyan (knowledge of culture).

Vidhya Bharati schools operate in Kerala. The first Vidya Bharati school in the State, the Vyasa Vidya Peetam, was established on 10 hectares of land in Kallekkadu, near Palakkad. The organisation has since established its presence in all 14 districts in the State; today it runs over 400 schools in Kerala. About 90 per cent of the teachers of Vidhya Bharati are women; all teachers are required to undergo a five-month special training in Indian tradition and culture and the Hindu way of education at the Bharatiya Vidya Niketan’s Adhyapaka Prasikshana Kendram, at the Vyasa Vidya Peetam campus in Palakkad. Most of the schools have a system of maintaining a record of the day-to-day activities of each student, especially regarding the progress or lack of it in the core curriculum. None of the Vidya Niketan schools in Kerala is recognised by the pseudo secular State Government, and students are presented for State-level or CBSE examinations as private candidates.

From the point of view of National Security, Vidya Bharati has started large number of schools in the border areas such as in Uttar Pradesh on the border of Tibet and Nepal, in Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur on the border of Burma and in Kuchha (Gujarat), and Rajasthan on the border of Pakistan and has decided to increase their number.

Vidya Bharati has also taken up the programme for the development of Social Consciousness and Social Service in the hearts of its young students. They organise a fund-raising campaign on 30th January (Leprosy Day), every year. They collect lakhs of rupees to help the healthy children of Leprosy patients living in Sushil Balak Griha, Champa (M.P).

Vidya Bharati has also extended its educational programmes to meet the challenges of our tribal population posed by the Christian Missionaries, especially in the North-East Region of Bharat and in Chhota Nagpur area.

The real strength of Bharat lies in the integrated development of her rural population. Hence Vidya Bharati has concentrated all its efforts to spread network of schools in villages.