PM Modi's school in Vadnagar to be "Prerna" for students

By Payal Mehta
New Delhi [India], June 6 : The Central government plans to take two students from each district of the country for a study tour to the primary school that Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended as a child.
"Over the next year, two children from each of 750 districts will be visiting the primary school situated at PM Modi's birthplace in Gujarat's Vadnagar, as a part of a seven-day study tour," top government sources told ANI.
"Every world leader never forgets his primary education school, and there is an attempt by every nation to protect the sentiment. Therefore, the Government of India will do something similar," the source said.
The sources further said, "Throughout his tenure of nine years, as a prime minister of the country, PM Modi has taken India to the world platform and many have drawn inspiration from his rise to the top from a humble background. And this is the reason why this program at the school is being termed as Prerna (which translates to inspiration) because it was at this school that Narendra Modi got his first formal education."
PM Modi's childhood school has been preserved by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) since 2018.
During this trip, children will learn about India's valour and bravery and the proud sons of the soil. There are a total of eight classrooms in the school which will be imparting knowledge to the children through state-of-the-art technology and devices.
"Children will be shown and told about the story of the Param Vir Chakra awardee brave soldiers of our motherland. Holograms will be used for children to know about the life and times of greats like Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. Speeches of the former Prime Ministers including Jawaharlal Nehru, Atal Bihari, Vajpayee and Indira Gandhi will be played out," the source added.
The selection process for the children to be brought to the Vadnagar school is still being worked upon and these trips are likely to begin from October this year.
"In one trip a maximum of 30 students can be brought to the school. The expenses for the students including the travel and stay will be funded by the Government of India through the Ministry of Culture, the sources said.
This program is expected to take forward PM Modi's vision of Ek Bharat Shrestha Bharat.
"Students coming from far and wide will have a good opportunity to have a cultural exchange. During their stay in the school there will be a program asking students to prepare one recipe from their region for all the other batch mates and have an exchange of food," said another source to ANI.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's hometown Vadnagar, where he stayed in the early days of his life is in for a major facelift.
A master plan is afoot for the overall uplift of the town, which not only served as an important trading hub but carries with it rich, cultural and religious significance dating back to more than 2,500 years as a religious hub for both Buddhist and Jain culture. The first archaeological excavation took place in 1960.
With the groundbreaking ceremony that took place last year, Vadnagar is all set to get its first heritage site museum to be inaugurated by Prime Minister Modi before the end of this year.
Being built at a cost of nearly Rs 200 crores, the state-of-the-art museum will be a three-storeyed structure highlighting seven cultural periods within the last 2,500 years.
This museum is being built by the Gujarat government in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture.
"During the excavation more than 55,000 including seals, jewellery, bangles, pottery, etc have been found, which are a division of these cultural periods. Modern technology including audiovisual programs will be used to depict this heritage. Each gallery will provide the experience to understand what happened during the seven cultural periods," sources who are privy to the development of the museum told ANI.
The Vadnagar International Conference was organized from May 18-20, 2022 aimed at promoting the archaeological heritage and culture of the historic town.
In continuation of this initiative, the Government of Gujarat had undertaken a unique step to further the research being undertaken on Vadnagar by bringing national and international researchers to work on various research proposals.
Several premier educational institutions are working on the history and significance of Vadnagar including IIT Kharagpur, IIT Gandhinagar, and Banaras Hindu University.