Saraswati Shishu Mandir

Saraswati Sishu Mandir are a group of schools run by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Saraswati is the Hindu goddess of knowledge, music and other creative arts. In Sanskrit, sishu means children and mandir means temple.

The birthplace of Saraswati Shishu Mandir is in Pakkibagh, Gorakhpur - a district of Uttar Pradesh in India. In 1952, late Nanaji Deshmukh and a group of RSS activists planned to educate children about Hindutva (the nationalistic Hindu way of life) and Krishna Chandra Gandhi opened the first school in Gorakhpur. Prior to this, Gita school was established at Kurukshetra in the year 1946 by M. S. Golwalkar.

The education style in these schools is a blend of ancient Indian education style as prescribed in the Vedas, nationalistic Hindu pride, and contemporary subjects taught in the local language. They address the male teacher as aacharya (teacher) and female teacher as Didi/bahenji. The day starts with plenty of prayers to goddess Saraswati in Sanskrit and Hindi, omkar, Gayatri Mantra. Other patriotic songs and didactic motivational stories are also recited. They sing Shanti Path by which they pray for Peace and prosperity of every human being. They also worship Bharat Mata.

As on 2010, about 17,000 schools have been instituted across India. All state-level committees are affiliated to the Vidya Bharati Akhil Bharatiya Shiksha Sansthan educational system, headquartered in Delhi. Most of the schools follows NCERT books and CBSE syllabus.

Across all grades, the school starts with a "zero period" (sunya kalamsh). In this class, the teacher tells students about historical stories and legends of freedom fighters and religions of India. The morning prayer starts with the "morning prayer mantra" and ends with the "peace prayer" (shanti path).

At the end of school time, students sing Vande Mataram. In many schools, students of north east states are getting education free of cost. In this school all the students are taking lunch together with Teachers (Acharya) after a Bhojan Mantra. There are several ashrams run by the Saraswati Shishu Mandir for welfare of Tribes, where they get free education/ food etc.

Many schools are currently running in rural areas for the betterment of Rural India. All those schools are funded by other schools. Vidya Bharati is working with an aim of providing quality education and creation of patriotic student in society. Class rooms are in the name of various historic person such as Kabir, Rahim, Kalidas, Subhas Chandra Bose, Bhagat singh etc.