Swadhyaya 2019

With an aim to create awareness among school students about human values, Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Educare, Chromepet (a CBSE school offering Sai system of value-based education) is organizing ‘Swadhyaya’ – seminar on human values as an inter-school competition for the past 17 years.

The 18^th year seminar was organized on the topic ‘Time wasted is life wasted’ on 27^th July 2019 from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm. 13 schools from in and around Chennai were selected to participate in the seminar. Mr.P.Kumarasamy, Correspondent welcomed the gathering.

Smt. Gowri Sivasankar, Principal, Chettinad Harishree Vidyalayam, RA Puram Chennai presided over the inaugural function. She explained how the modern generation waste their time in Social Media uselessly and emphasized upon saving time through concepts like ‘Slow thinking’, by quoting the words of great philosophers.

Dr.Tiruppur Krishnan, Editor, Amudha Surabi Magazine was the Chief Guest. He explained how one can achieve success by saving time through concentration. Most of the students study with fear just 10 days before the examinations. If they study on a daily basis, they can get centum mark easily in all the subjects. Saints Swami Vivekananda, Adi Sankara lived only for a short period of time but they achieved many things that can be done in more than 200 years. All these were possible because they were having full focus and high concentration in the work they were doing, which made them save more time and excel in everything.

Smt. K.Saimeera, Principal presented a synopsis about the seminar. A panel of 7 judges who are eminent professionals in various fields judged the best school on the basis of performance in Role play, PPT presentation, Question & Answer session, Team work and Poster painting event.

Sri N.Shanmugam, Former Education Officer, Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan, Chennai region and school Education Advisor presented a review about the whole day presentations by various schools.

Padma Sri Dr.S.Rajaram, General Secretary, Sivananda Saraswathi Sevashram, Chennai presided over the valedictory function and educated students how good communication would save more time and fetch success. Today, in Tamilnadu, we have more than 1 Lakh orphan students, thousands of students who cannot speak, hear or see. But, how blessed are we for having good parents and a healthy body. Each student should associate themselves with a NGO that run for helpless children and elders and help them to live happily. All students should make sure that at any point of time, they would not send their parents to old age home. On the 4^th death anniversary of Dr. A.P.J.Abdul Kalam, Dr.Rajaram inspired everyone by narrating incidents from the life history of Dr.A.P.J.Abdul Kalam and his strong faith on the youth of India who alone can transform the country.

Swami Sathyaprabhanandaji Maharaj, Asst. Secretary, Ramakrishna Ashrama, Chennai was the Chief Guest of the programme. He asked every student to write the topic of the seminar ‘Time wasted is life wasted’ on their house wall which would remind their entire family to avoid wasting time and make it useful. Only when we respect time, the world will respect us. Even Gold can be got back if it is lost. But, if we loose time, it cannot be brought back. He inspired everyone about the importance of saving time through humorous stories and educated that unless we also ran with the time, the world would throw us away.

The overall championship shield for excellent performance was awarded to Army Public School, Nandambakkam, Chennai. Maharishi Vidya Mandir, Polachery came out as the Runners. All other participants and guide teachers were given Certificates and mementoes for their participation. The programme ended with National Anthem followed by Mangala Arathi to Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba and Prasadam distribution.