Programmes : Education, Culture and Knowledge Systems
Post-colonization, our education system was used to underrate indigenous knowledge systems and completely overlook local cultural heritage trying to ratify education with modernization. At Anandalaya, the modernization theory is examined, unpacked and critiqued for equating modernization with Westernization culminating in the promotion of cultural imperialist sentiments that have an alienating effect between the educated and society. PIDT deals with this issue through it’s work at Anandalaya and Shilpalaya.
ANANDALAYA PUBLIC SCHOOL – Secondary School
This is an CBSE school upto the 10th grade. The school students are encouraged to take up leadership roles through various pedagogic innovations. The children are from families of farmers and artisans in rural Jharkhand primarily from communities of the under-priviledged. Effort is taken to see that the children don’t drop out and all are given individual attention. The effort is to develop their scientific temper and simultaneously exact their full potential through art, crafts, poetry, drama, dance, music and sports. The children are encouraged to be in a process of constant learning, both inside and outside the classroom as well as make their own content.
SHILPALAYA - School of Arts, Crafts and built environment
This is a craft development center that follows Mahatma Gandhiji and Gurudev Tagores viewpoint of making craft the center of education. The joy of creation and production is taught to the children, teenagers and young adults so that they develop their skills and enrich their experiential learning. PIDT Shilpalaya enables artisans to innovate and bring value-addition to their traditional skills by incorporating appropriate technology along with hand-crafted production in the spirit of continuing production. At the moment the three crafts of terracotta, bamboo and artistic textiles are being nurtured. Besides for cultural development, involvement with arts and crafts helps to develop the higher values in the persons. The Shilpalaya serves as a repository of the regional crafts while innovating on utility products for the contemporary world. It is an attempt to retain sensibility to both the language of the vernacular and our cultural heritage without loosing their relevance in our fast paced development paradigm.