Creative Learning

Agastya International Foundation is a reputed organization in the field of creative education. Agastya is famous because of its uniqueness around the world. Teen age students like Agastya’s scientific ways of teaching science, ecology and arts subjects. Agastya was formed in 1997 in Andhrapradesh. There are 34 mobile vans that move place to place to give practical knowledge to students at their doorstep. Now the vans work in two states of India, Andhra and Karnataka, through 253 committed staff members. The main objective for running mobile vans is to bring students closer to the reality of scientific reasoning and make education interesting.

Mr. Ramji Raghavan is the chairman of Agastya International Foundation. He was with Dshpande Feellows for one day session in the month of March. Before Agastya he worked in consulting and banking in India, he then jumped from India to San Juan (Puerto Rico) to New York City to London, and he then finally spent a short while in Luxembourg. His working career also included two years in a social-spiritual purpose company, helping a friend in London.  

Ramji started thinking about creating Agastya beginning in 1994 when he was in London. He received support from his father for this innovation and met Mr. Chandrababu Naidu, chief minister of Andhra, in 1998 to get land to start an eco-friendly centre for students. After some successful pioneering work with teachers on applying scientific ways of teaching, he acquired 160 acres of land. His main goal in starting Agastya was and remains to make children confident without a fear of learning. To start this enterprise he got monetary support from some NRIs to establish the foundation. The year 2002 was very important for Agastya; they started a running mobile lab through a van. They were visiting schools to demonstrate and giving close experience of science-related happenings. They achieved overwhelming success with international recognition of this project. When it saw positive impact being made, the government started working in partnership with Agastya in Chittur District in the year 2004. Soon after, the Government of Karnataka also offered partnership to start this initiative in the state in 2007. Here they started organized an exhibition, fare stalls and science centers in different places.

Recently Agastya received an offer of Rs. 100 crore from JhunJhunwala, Mumbai, and the central government of India has also asked Agastya to make a plan to implement this project nationwide.

Ramji Raghavan’s views:

‘Always aim high.’

‘Try to do/apply things not only think about them.’

‘Learning and work should be fun, not imposed.’