To empower children, we must focus more on education, not literacy: Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul

To empower children, we must focus more on education, not literacy: Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul

One of the biggest challenge in education we will face is helping children manage the abundant technology available, said Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, former Judge, Supreme Court of India, in Chennai, on Sunday.

Speaking at the diamond jubilee celebration of Bala Mandir Kamaraj Trust (BMKT), he said, “We should have focused more on education post independence. To empower children we need to focus more on education, not just literacy.”

Stating that education has worked extremely well in Tamil Nadu, he added that in the momentum to gain economic perspective, empathy for others cannot be lost.

Natarajan P, honorary treasurer and trustee, BMKT said, “In the last five years, the number of children that BMKT has directly impacted has gone up by three times. From 800 to around 2,400 children we have taken into our care.”

Recalling the history of BMKT, its honorary general secretary and trustee Maya Gaitonde said, “The eminent personalities who came together in the post-independence era with the sole intention of forming an institution, chose to call ‘Mandir’ where the deity would be the children.”

BMKT over the last few days has organised various events to celebrate their diamond jubilee beginning with a sarva-dharma prayer, a volunteers meeting, an alumni meeting and ending with a villu paatu next week. A coffee table book on Bala Mandir’s history was released on the occasion.

President of Indian Council for Child Welfare, Tamil Nadu Andal Damodaran recalled, “Manjuma was my teacher right from the beginning. She would scold me if I wasted a paper because every bit that exists in the Bala Mandir campus belonged to the children.”