As a mark of celebrating the 150th Birth anniversary of Sri Aurobindo & 75th Year of India’s Independence, AuroBharati, on the eve of International Museum Day, organized a lecture on ‘Museums for Education’ by Shri Pradeep Ghosh.

The event commenced with the opening remarks by Dr. Kishor Kumar Tripathy, Member Secretary, AuroBharati, Sri Aurobindo Society. He highlighted that “Museums are an important means of cultural exchange, enrichment of cultures and development of mutual understanding, cooperation and peace among peoples.” 

Shri Pradeep Ghosh, in his presentation, mentioned that museums are pathways that take us on a journey from the past to the present and the anticipated future. However, while these interest a traveller, tourist, and researcher, they are hardly used by an educator. Can museums be of any use in education? While no one would say no, the real question is HOW?

Speaking on occasion, Shri Ghosh emphasized that although the Museums and education have been running parallelly for decades, we have not seen any kind of convergence happening anywhere. The Museums have not been included in a more significant manner in education and there is an urgent need to address this issue.

Shri Ghosh mentioned that his project, ‘The Museum School’, won the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Education Innovation Award 2016. His innovative idea was listed among the 100 global Inspiring Innovations that are changing the face of K12 education today. The Museum School addresses all components of quality education: world-class Infrastructure, Teaching Aids, and qualified and trained Teachers, all at no extra cost.

Emphasizing curriculum development, Shri Ghosh highlighted the model designed to provide holistic education starting from behavioural changes, to literacy, academics, physical and adolescence education, and finally ending with vocational skills and entrepreneurship development. 

He also focused on the quality of education for the unprivileged children through regular schools and the National Open School for examination and certification. The objective is to make them self-employable, confident, responsible and independent in society. 

The program concluded with an insightful conversation focusing on what role the museums can play as per the New Education Policy? How can the gaps between city museum schools and small-town museum schools be filled? And the different models of setting up of museums on different aspects of education?

About the speaker:

Shri Pradeep Ghosh is Founder and Advisor: OASIS – A Social Innovations Lab and also Co-Founder and Advisor: Atal Incubation Centre – Aartech (AIC), Co-Founder: SWANS & NAYAV Volunteers Associations, The Museum School, Collaborative Holistic Schooling (CoHoS) community and Schools of Unconventional Learning (SOUL).

During his fifteen years of Corporate career spanning 12 countries, he often wondered: “While every industry has Research Labs that bring out new products and processes, why does the Social sector have none”. To address this gap, he stepped out of the corporate world and started ‘OASiS – A Social Innovations Lab’ in India in 2003.

Elected as an Ashoka Fellow in 2004 and has won many international innovation awards, his models are replicated by Governments, NGOs, Universities and schools. Budding social entrepreneurs mentored by the Lab have received national acclaim.

His model, ‘The Museum School’, won the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Education Innovation Award 2016. The Museum School is running successfully in Bhopal and is also replicated in Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Bangalore in collaboration with different museums.