About | Akshar Foundation

History

An ancient model

on the cutting edge

A brief history of the
Indian Education Model

The mission of Akshar Foundation is to spread the Indian Education Model throughout the world.

The Indian Education Model is the foundation of an ancient system of knowledge gathering and transmission, a continuous culture spanning nearly 5000 years in the past to the present. The Indian tradition can be contrasted with the Occidental tradition of the West, which emerged from Ancient Greece. The Occidental tradition believes in mind-body separation. The mind is treated as a separate entity, the focus of Western education.

The Indian model of holistic education promoted by Akshar Foundation dates back to antiquity, a model that develops the whole child, mind, as well as body. The Indian Education Model views mind-body separation as false, an assumption which modern science is increasingly confirming. As such, education was designed to focus as much on abstract academics (Languages, Maths, Science, etc.) as on practical arts and hands-on learning — experiential learning, skills development, and physical conditioning by developing muscle memory. Boiled down to its simplest form: Learning by Doing.

The Indian tradition balanced mind and body to produce and export quasi-secular knowledge systems like Buddhism, Yog, and Kung-Fu all over the world. Hu Shih, a late scholar and former Ambassador of the Republic of China to the US once stated, “India conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border”. This cultural hegemony extended to most of Asia, not only China. Today, these ideas are gaining more and more prominence in the West, including a mainstream belief in holistic approaches, Gandhian Ahimsa (non-violent protest), Eastern medicine, Eastern philosophy, Karma, and “Yoga”.

The Indian tradition exported the counting system that the whole world uses, decimals that cycle through 10 digits — forming the basis of modern algebra and all modern mathematics and science — as well as producing major innovations in the foundations of mathematics, physics, medicine and other sciences.

Schrodinger, Heisenberg, Bohr, and Oppenheimer were among the chief founders of Quantum Physics, the field of science which split the atom and birthed the transistor, creating the dual Nuclear Age and Computer Age that we live in. Their ideas about the nature of reality emerged from the mathematics, but when they needed the concepts to understand their equations, to understand Quantum Mechanics, they turned to the Indian knowledge tradition for conceptual clarity.

Erwin Schrödinger, known for “Schrödinger’s Cat”, a thought experiment explaining the counter-intuitive quantum superposition of particles, reportedly said “The unity and continuity of Vedanta are reflected in the unity and continuity of wave mechanics.”

Werner Heisenberg, known for the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle dictating the quantum mechanics of sub-atomic particles reportedly remarked, “After the conversations about Indian philosophy, some of the ideas of Quantum Physics that seemed so crazy suddenly made much more sense.”

Niels Bohr, who created the atomic model used by scientists, reportedly stated “I go into the Upanishads to ask questions.”

India contributed many founders of modern physics as well, including Satyendranath Bose, the founder of Quantum Statistics who collaborated with Einstein and after whom the sub-atomic particle known as a “Boson” was named, as well as many others like Raman, Chandrasekhar, and Ramachandran. Few so-called “Third World Nations” could boast such major contributions to modern science, despite being hobbled by colonialism.

The Indian tradition was the foundation of Mahatma Gandhi’s Nai Talim education philosophy, which failed to become official policy during his lifetime. We believe this is because Nai Talim in practice at the time was too rigid, and failed to adapt to the modern requirements of a nation-state.

So, the nation opted to implement the Western model instead, leading to the creation of world-renowned centers of excellence like the Indian Institute of Technology, which export scientists and engineers all over the world, but which suffer from staggering inequality and neglect the needs of the average student.

Since then, NGOs and schools like Anand Niketan Akhil Bhartiya Nai Talim Samita, and Akshar Foundation, among many others, have worked to promote the adoption of the Indian Education Model. At Akshar, we believed the Indian Education Model should be based firmly in Indian Philosophy, but also integrate the best parts of the Western tradition, like modern science and technology.

In 2019, the Indian Model at Akshar went viral in news outlets all over the world. Niti Aayog, the apex public policy think-tank of the Government India, as well as the United Nations, and the World Economic Forum all showed their support for Akshar's Indian model in press releases and social media.

In 2020, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced India's new National Education Policy (NEP 2020), to create the modern Indian Model of Education, and beginning the shift to schools based on the Indian tradition.

In 2021, the Government of India agreed to adopt the Akshar NEP 2020 model in five schools in Assam, as a pilot for state-wide implementation.

In 2022, the Government of India conducted in-depth assessments of Akshar Forum, our experimental model school, as well as other schools and gurukuls throughout India based on the the Indian Model of Education. A few weeks later, Prime Minister Modiji announced PM SHRI Schools, 14,500 schools based on the new Indian Education Model. Green schools with a holistic approach, focused on vocational skills development and mastery of technology. The paradigm has shifted.