Schools and Colleges
SoM exists only for the Spiritual Development of Children & Youth, but it does focus on Life-Skills and high-quality experiential Academics when it needs to, to fulfill its purpose.
When it comes to schools and colleges plan, SoM has a low-cost and not-for-profit, but scientific and technologically smart plan of education, to impart experiential & universal Spiritual Education, along with 21st-century experiential Academic Education to children and youth, whether poor or rich, atheists or believers, that would help them lead a happy & fulfilled life.
SoM's schools and colleges will have 51% focus on Spirituality and 49% focus on Academics.
The goal of SoM's schools and colleges is to provide best spiritual training without loosing on academic excellence and future job opportunities.
Modern ashram-like Schools & Colleges
These schools and colleges will be residential and will be like modern ashrams with school or college within the ashram, with infrastructure good-enough to fulfil basic needs, without catering to luxuries. Infrastructure will be such that most students would be able to feel comfortable enough.
Students will dress not in uniforms but in normal clothes (Tshirts, jeans, shorts, etc) like they wear at home. Most importantly, atmosphere will be loving and homely. Teachers will be like elder brothers or sisters.
School students will be prepared for getting into college and the college students will be prepared for a future professional life of a corporate employee, entrepreneur or something else as per the student's choice.
Students will be encouraged to run the school or college to a greater degree. They may have their own government to run the school & manage expenses, cook, cut vegetables, run the mess, wash their own utensils, form and lead communities, teach juinors, clean their own rooms, be part of building construction, gardening and agriculture. Many such ideas are being implemented here:
Through these activities children understand that no work is small and they should not depend on others for day-to-day living when outside help is not available. Of course, they will also learn not to be lazy and lethargic. Physical work and working with hands is integral part of education ideals of all the great ones, especially Gandhi and also in the ancient Gurukul system of India.
Students will be made to understand through their own spiritual experience that if they want to be happy, they must adopt practical spiritual practises as a daily life-long habit for which they will be trained in the institution. Even after passing out of the school and college, they would never be seen as an alumni. They would still be part of the Global Online University Platform (for free) and will be expected to continue their spiritual practise while staying connected to the SoM mentors. Through the platform, they would be able to take life-guidance or spiritual-guidance from the mentors no matter which country they are in. Also, they would be able to stay in touch with the rest of the like-minded classmates who would be doing same spiritual practises in their busy professional or married lives.
Tier 1.5 Engineering College
For the Engineering College, in addition to the Spiritual plan, the tentative idea is to make Academics quality somewhere between Tier 1 and Tier 2, basically something like a Tier 1.5 college.
In this Tier 1.5 college, reasonably good-quality academics will be taught without getting into the pressure and race of appearing among the top in India in the Media.
Because of this race, most engineering colleges focus more on infrastructure, fancy buildings, instead of focusing on what matters most - quality teachers and an experiential curriculum! A simple college with a few good quality teachers, a curriculum focussed on problem-solving, and ample use of online learning platforms: MOOCs platforms like EdX and MIT's OCW, and Programming platforms like HackerRank and Leetcode, will probably prove to be enough to give a Tier 1.5 level Computer Science Engineering education. Rest of the engineering areas need to be studied further, but perhaps they too can be dealt in the same way.
SoM will try to convince parents, students' friends, and teachers to not pressurise the students, implicitly or explicitly, towards higher-packages or bigger worldly success. Students will be encouraged to study for the joy of learning. Working on projects is anyways interesting and keeps the students driven. Some amount of pressure is anyways necessary for those who need it.
Because of relatively low pressure to be number one in worldly success, the students, teachers, and management will have time and energy to focus on what really matters- Happiness! And that comes by having a wholistic development of material, physical, social, mental and spiritual side of a human being. In addition to academics, students will be trained in these areas using the tools made available by the ancient seers, science, sports enthusiasts, and others.
Such a college will not require an elaborate infrastructure. A simple building, with a few rooms, a laptop for every child, simple furniture, a few good programmers as teachers, are good enough to get started. The minimum requirement for AICTE affiliation needs to be checked out.
This particular Bachelors in Computer Science program by IIITH alumni will be an inspiration for this college.
Admissions
Admissions will primarily not be on the basis of academic merit but on the basis of Spiritual interests. Any kind of engineering entrance exams are unlikely to be considered for admission. So, students with all kinds of academic background and intellectual level will join the institute. Teaching methods like Differentiated Instruction and Project Based Learning will be used through and through to cater to the needs of different level of students.
