Educationists flag ‘misuse’ of Swami Vivekananda’s name by govt for own propaganda

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: The new government classrooms scheme Viveka was of ficially launched on November 14, on Children’s Day in Kalaburagi district and the government has decided to paint the new classrooms saffron. The state government has decided to construct 8,100 classrooms in government schools spread across the state.

They will be named after Swami Vivekananda and will be in the same structure and colour. They will also feature sayings of Swami Vivekananda on infrastructures such as walls and pillars. The Department of School Education and Literacy had not revealed the colour code of the classrooms.

While the minister has defended the move and said that the “state government does not get into things like the colour of walls or windows,” educationists across the state have condemned the government for using Swami Vivekananda for their personal interest.

They have alleged that this can be viewed as another step towards saffornising the education system. Dr Niranjanaradhya V P, a development educationist, has explained that from a pedagogical view, the classrooms need to be child-friendly and must enable learning.

This can be achieved with different methods such as introducing pictures of flora and fauna keeping in mind local thematic, which will enable learning by itself. He deemed the step as a new form of saf