The Education Commission of Madhya Pradesh Jesuit Province, under the leadership of Provincial Fr. Ranjit Tigga SJ, and Fr. Satya Prakash Tigga SJ, the newly appointed PCE, in the presence of JEA Secretary Fr. Sunny Jacob SJ had a one day meeting in XISA Raipur on 25 August 2019. The meeting began with the introductory note by Fr. Provincial, in which he expressed his aspirations and expectations from the school personnel and articulated the need for quality in educational apostolate of our province.  Fr. Satya SJ threw lights on the challenges that we are facing today and urged all to be more creative, innovative, united and contribute better than what we are today. He urged us not to be complacent and mediocre, but be real contributing leaders in Education. He also urged all of us to actively participate in the forth coming CZEB conclave at Bhopal.

Fr. Sunny Jacob SJ, the resource person explained to the group the efforts of the Society of Jesus in implementing the UAPs globally. He urged that the UAP’s are only an Orientation for our entire mission. They are not priorities in the sense to implement one after the other, rather all the 4 must permeate in all our apostolates, so also in education. He also talked about the Paradigm Shift of 10 concrete areas that we need to take in this fast changing world of ours. There are also multiple challenges thrown before us by the un-favourable external forces. He dealt with the process of implementing the four major thrust areas of the JEA, namely 1. Reconciliation and Peace, 2. Human Rights, Democracy and the Constitution, 3. Ecology and  4. SIP. In his talk he briefly dealt with the  challenges and opportunities of the Draft National Education policy 2019. He cautioned us that “we cannot run old schools in our new buildings”. Change is the reality and we must adapt relevant changes to be more efficacious and visible to the world.  We have a very good legacy and we must be rooted in the legacy to re-invent our education in today’s world. The Policies and Programmes we have must take into consideration of the 17 SDGs, Laudato Si, Rio Statement and Action Plan of the SJ, GC 36, Bhubaneswar Statement, Catholic Education Policy in India, the DNEP 2019 and the rapidly changing environment of India.

After the input session by the JEA Secretary, we were divided into six groups for further reflections and action plans in-order to inculcate Jesuit values and principles in our staff and students in the province. Our Education must be for relevance than mere academic success. All the groups presented their concrete action plans to be executed shortly with in a definite time frame. At the end of the meeting Fr. Satyaprakash Tigga emphasized on some action plans which are to be implemented immediately namely, 1. ‘celebrating earth day’, 2. ‘introducing Examen of Conscience’ (Atma Manthan), 3. ‘Teacher’s Pledge on teachers’ day’, 4. Propagation of ‘preamble of the Constitution of India’, 5. ‘My India pledge’ in all our schools, 6. Starting and strengthening ‘Alumni Association’ in all our schools  etc.  Fr. Provincial in his final address reiterated his support to all the initiatives saying “ I will not leave a single stone unturned to meet your proposals”  We need to pledge to be creative, innovative, crtically thinking…there is always a better way.

We were so much energetica and enthused by the seminar/ meeting and we are sure that we are going to implement the action plan we decided in all our schools. We ended our meeting with the prayer “ Take and Receive…,”

Fr. Michael Tirkey SJ