The academic year 2022-23 is begun with great joy and hope after the fear and anxiety caused by 2 years of horrifying Covid-19 pandemic. Let us acknowledge God’s benevolence and offer our gratitude for restoring normalcy. We had three major celebrations in the recent months - the First Foundation Day in the Post Centenary Year of the Congregation on 16 July 2022, the Platinum Jubilee of our Independence and the Teachers Day. The schools have meaningfully celebrated these festive occasions by conducting enriching activities to instil in the students love for the institution, teachers and our country.
Education is an endless journey through knowledge and enlightenment. Schools need to focus more on ethics and moral values to help the students battle against the counter forces in the society and contribute to the betterment as they get older. Childhood is the foundation stone upon which stands the whole life structure of an individual and the seeds sown in childhood blossom into the tree of life.
In modern society education provides one with the tools to improve one’s quality of life both economically and sociologically. This way education has the power to change and transform our lives right from promoting gender equality to reducing poverty. Education is a single tool that can bring the needed transformation in society without creating any repercussions. Nelson Mandela, anti-apartheid revolutionary and former President of South Africa while addressing students and teachers at Madison Park High School in Boston on 23 June 1990 said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which can be used to change the world.”
Bethany Educational Institutions believe that schools are truly the medium of change and transformation. In the XVII General Chapter of the Congregation certain priorities were arrived at to make our education transformative. Main ones among them are:
To make Educational institutions transformative agents the schools will introduce children’s parliament, Human Rights Education and values enshrined in the Preamble - justice, equality, liberty and fraternity
To aim at ‘Peace education and build human fraternity’ in the school campus
We are heading towards the platinum Jubilee year of the Bethany Educational Society. Preparations are underway for a year-long and meaningful celebration of the historic event, the inauguration of which is scheduled for 12 October 2022. Let us look forward for an insightful Jubilee year ahead.
Sr Sandhya BS
Secretary, BES