Background information on Vikramshila

Mission of Vikramshila - Imparting same type of quality education to all children. It believes that equity based education spread over entire social fabric is the only way to seal the divide between the poor and the rich.

Our march began in the late eighties. Improving the quality of non-formal education provided by NGOs was our objective, to start with. At that time scope of work in the field of education by NGOs in West Bengal was limited. Specially, innovative thinking to rethink about primary education was beyond imagination. Of course, some change in this regard has taken place now. We have been closely associated with District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA). We are now members of three of their State Resource Groups.

Going back to the time when we began, NGOs' activities were mainly confined to either Balwadis or non-formal centres. Standard of most of these centres was not that good and as a result common people developed a lack of interest about education. Many even felt that education has nothing to offer. Coupled with these, not so hopeful conditions of government schools created a situation where people in general lost confidence in the value of education. In the background of this situation, we felt that instead of preaching, something could be demonstrated practically to get back their confidence in the value of education. So, we decided to properly train NGOs so that they could be helped to establish some model education centres. We believed that people after having seen such centres would feel interested and inclined for the need of education. Consequently, such centres would continue to expand. Thus would evolve awareness in people who would then start demanding quality education. Vikramshila with its thrust on teachers' training would like to build up a new generation teacher community that will give the lead for a new movement for quality education.

Process oriented learning is the focus in Vikramshila's education philosophy. It believes that if this approach is adopted, education will naturally become child-centric, life-centric and joyful. Thus, the objective being pursued by Vikramshila is directed towards doing something meaningfully innovative for public education system, where 90% of country's children receive education. Awareness and opinion building have been the lead initiative of Vikramshila, and so, nowadays it is getting more involved in movement in the field of education.

Contact details Vikramshila Education Resource Society 256B, Prince Anwar Shah Road, Kolkata 700 045 (W.B.) India Phones : 91-33-3292 6084, 2422 9124 / 9175 / 9176 / 4855 / 4887