A teacher is a person who generates curiosity and imbibes knowledge and wisdom in students. In our life, there is always a teacher who motivates and inspires us to move towards the bracket of ever-changing success in life!

We all face many professional and personal challenges, and there are times when we don’t understand what to do in that particular situation. A teacher in the form of a guide always tends to guide us to the right path at any stage of life, and there is always one teacher from our school and college whom we fascinate and look upon their guidance in every situation.

Teachers act as the engine that takes the education system forward; they play a vital role in nurturing and preparing the future generation to become capable leaders. They are the greatest influencer in the education space and helps in shaping the child’s future.

All teachers are the powerhouse of abundant knowledge and wish to see their students grow in every phase of life. Catering to that need for leading a stable holistic life, Dr Bhuvana Saravanan established Sri Ashiyana Public School, in which she focuses more on providing quality education to students who are economically deprived and physically disabled.

Being one of the most influential and powerful women educators in the country, Dr Bhuvana always believed that education is the fundamental right of every child, despite any uncertainties. She aims to establish various branches all over Tamil Nadu and in rural areas where education facilities are the need of the hour.

While interacting with The Knowledge Review, Dr Bhuvana Saravanan, the Founder and Chairperson of the Sri Ashiyana Public School, shares her opinions and experiences as well as asserts her vision for the school’s future.

The Background Story

Dr Bhuvana Saravanan and Mr S.R. Saravanan founded Sri Ashiyana Public School in 2015. The school is the flagship of ‘Guru Raghavendra Trust,’ and the founder and chairperson of the trust are Dr Bhuvana Saravanan.

The school was incepted with a vision to ensure that the underprivileged, especially abled children and women from the backward community, get the proper education and employment opportunity to achieve their career goals.

Through Sri Ashiyana School, Dr Bhuvana Saravanam aims to provide the ultimate result in the education sector and focuses on the freedom of learning, which generates interest and makes the learning process more accessible to students.

Dr Bhuvana Saravanan: A Benevolence Personality

Dr Bhuvana started her career in 1996 as a nursery teacher after working in several schools and learning new teaching methods such as Montessori, play way, vehicle, and many more.

While working, she felt something was missing, and many teachers couldn’t understand the psychological aspect of individual students. Due to a lack of attention, some students could not perform well and were labeled as slow learners.

Most schools want their yearly performance to be the best. However, in the race to achieve success, sometimes they fail to focus on an individual student’s interest in education, and in order to cater to the best school accreditation, they avoid the student’s interest and treat students like a robot.

Dr Bhuvana acknowledged the issue and established the Sri Ashiyana School, which focused on providing education to underprivileged, physically disabled students and women from backward communities. Her role model is the late Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, J. Jayalalitha. Dr Bhuvana always felt she was a single woman who handled every situation positively when male leaders headed the country.

Insights, Reliability, and Ideologies

After sharing the pedagogical journey, Dr Bhuvana also sighted the vision, beliefs, and core values of the school.

Insights-

“To create a society where every individual is treated equally without any bias or religion or cast.”

Sliding her beliefs or reliability, she mentioned, “We as a mentor can guide and show them the correct method of learning, which will help them to become an independent individual.”

The school is achieving great success because of its belief in its core values, which is to create a society where everyone, irrespective of their shortcoming, should be treated equally. Other than providing quality education to its students, the school also sees that through its charitable work for community development and welfare, it benefits the underprivileged through social, educational, economic, and medical activities.

Appreciating Pupil Aptitude

Dr Bhuvana’s priority is to provide the fundamental right to education and bring out students the hidden talents from rural areas of the country.

Due to poor economic conditions, few students don’t get a chance to explore their intelligence and talent. Similarly, the school provides education to such students, educates them individually, respects them, and prioritizes their feelings.

Every child has unique talents and can shine if they get the proper platform and inspiration to achieve their goals. The school has made it a primary objective, which helped them to create a different education method, that is very significant for differently abled and economically deprived students.

Adopting Modern Educational Pedagogies

While talking about the modern pedagogies, Dr Bhuvana shared her personal opinion on the online learning system and said, “As per my views, I feel offline classes are better than online classes because in offline classes the child will interact with the teacher and students, which is not possible in online classes. But during the pandemic, online classes helped the children to be connected with their subject and syllabus.”

Challenges in Expedition

Dr Bhuvana faced many challenges and struggled a lot while establishing the school. The major challenge she came across was implementing new techniques in education, as parents and people didn’t believe in the new methods of education.

Highlighting some of the challenges Dr Bhuvana encountered in her educational venture, she highlighted, “Sometimes the parents do compare other pedagogical schools and try to find the flaws, which demotivates her to bring new techniques to the school. Also, the parents are more concerned about the academic performances of their children than their interest in learning.”

Empowering Education

Concerning education, Dr Bhuvana shared her experience of how she has been empowering education in society. While saying so, she says, “Yes, Education is considered a tool of empowerment; we make sure that children from the underprivileged are also given the same education as the other children. So, during the pandemic, we visited more than 22 villages in and around MADURAI and provided the children with stationery and took classes as these children can’t afford phones or laptops to attend online classes.”

Procurements of the Schools

Ensuring all the initiatives and their challenges, Dr Bhuvana also mentioned the school’s achievements with us; she listed out the awards-

• ISA Global Award 2019.
• SIWAA Award 2019.
• Indian Iconic Education Award 2021.
• India Inspirational Women Award 2021.
• Hunar Ratna Award 2021.
• Global Teaching Excellence Award 2022.

Message for Upcoming Education Leader

When we asked Dr Bhuvana about any message to the upcoming education leaders, expressing her views, she asserted, “Education field is a very vast field; those who want to step into these should learn new things, should be ready for criticism and should be ready to take an innovative step to develop the institute.”

Envisioning the Future

Sri Ashiyana Public School was established to provide education to economically deprived and disabled students, as everyone has an equal right to education in the world. And for the past eight years, the school has been striving to provide quality education at a very low cost to underprivileged students and those who cannot afford to pay the school fees.

The Sri Ashiyana Public School aims to open its branches all over Tamil Nadu state and even in villages with very rare schools.