Sri Ramakrishna Vidyashala - Student Activities

Student Activities

Vidyashala's students number about 400 and fall in the age group of 13–18 years. Many of those who hail from outside Karnataka are from Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Bihar and Maharashtra. For several years, Vidyashala recruited students from India's northeastern states, particularly from Manipur.

The students follow a demanding regimen from the rising hour of 5.05 a.m. until they go to bed at about 10.15 p.m. A typical day is packed with physical exercise, literary activities, hobby pursuits including art and music, participation in a chosen outdoor sport, Vedic (often Upanishadic) chants and meditation, in addition to classroom work. The medium of instruction is English, with syllabi adopted from the state boards of secondary and pre-university education.

Two days a week the students go swimming, many times a year they perform manual or social work, and two or three times a year they participate in educational excursions to towns of historical or scientific interest. They return home for about four weeks during Dasara and for about eight weeks during the summer. Monthly once(high school)/twice(PUC) a guardian may visit Vidyashala on a Sunday to take their ward for on an outing. PUC students are allowed to go for outing on their own.

The students eat four times a day. Meals are lacto-vegetarian, prepared by resident cooks, and had while sitting cross-legged (yoga style) in a dining area. Lunch and dinner are preceded by chanting selected verses from the Bhagavad Gita. Many Indian festivals, including Krishna Janmashtami, Ganesh Chaturthi, Upanayanam or Munji, Shivarathri and Christmas, are celebrated with special activities. Every Ekadashi is celebrated with a special long prayer session. The students participate in voluntary activities coordinated by an elected Students Council comprising a president, a general secretary, a vice president and a joint secretary, in addition to about 20 other secretaries. Students Council officers are typically elected in July via electronic voting.

Vidyashala's students have achieved consistently excellent examination results over two decades. Class averages hover around 85 per cent. The school performed well even in 2004 and 2005 when Mysore district otherwise recorded a relatively poor performance.