Delhi government's vipassana plan stresses out teachers

NEW DELHI: The Delhi government has decided to send its schoolteachers for a 10-day residential vipassana course. It will be voluntary and will be conducted by an organization in Sohna, Haryana. The 10 days will be during the summer vacation to ensure there's no disruption of course work.

These will be treated as workdays for participants. Teacher organizations, however, are deeply unimpressed. They wish AAP would deal with the basic problems first--fill vacancies, implement the Right to Education Act and ensure water and power supplies. "We have invited names of teachers and whoever is interested can get trained," says Padmini Singla, director, education, newly-returned from a similar do in Chhattisgarh. There's no cap on the number of seats. "Vipassana Sadhana Sansthan holds these shivirs (camps) twice monthly ," she adds.

Education minister Manish Sisodia believes vipassana will "help students in personality development and stress-management". "This is in preparation for training students in the schools. I have already issued the order," says Sisodia.

Here's what the teachers will be doing according to the organization's website, "The day begins at 4am with a wakeup bell and continues until 9pm. There are about 10 hours of meditation, interspersed with breaks. Every evening at 7pm there is a videotaped lecture by the teacher, S N Goenka, which provides a context for meditators to understand their experience of the day ."

Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal is a regular practitioner of this form of meditation.

The Government School Teachers' Association, however, thinks this is a complete waste of time and resources. "There are schools with over a hundred kids sitting in one room, where there is no water and electricity supply is uncertain. There are roughly 20,000 vacancies. If you don't have the basics this value education won't have any value. We are against programmes that distract from the real issues," says C P Singh, president, GSTA.

Madan Mohan Tiwari of teachers' organization DELTA (Delhi Educationists for Legal and Teaching Assistance), dismisses the project as the result of "lobbying".

"Why vipassana?

Where's the scientific research to show it works?" he asks. "Why not something else? Why not yoga at Patanjali Yogpeeth or some sessions at Shanidham?" Tiwari would much rather have the government focus on implementation of RTE Act. "You can't deny admissions but there are hundreds of kids who're getting no space. They promised they'll retain guest teachers but 4,500 have been removed." With such glaring problems, he finds the entire value education programme "bekaar ki baat".