The South Public School, Omkar Nagar has been a pioneer to come up with a unique concept of International Principals’ Educational Conference which is a highly thought provoking meet wherein eminent Principals & Educationalist not only from India but from different parts of the world come and pool their expert opinions on a pre decided theme with the sole objective of benefiting the society by constantly upgrading our education system. The IPEC occurs biennially in Nagpur and beginning in 2008 has to its credit in all 7 meets till date. IPEC can be considered to be the brain child of Dr Mrunalini Dasture, Principal of The South Public School, Omkar Nagar, Nagpur. While doing her research, in Physics, Dr Dasture attended many International Conferences. It was then that she felt an urgent need for research in the field of Education. This is how IPEC was born.
The first conference was based on the theme “Total Quality Management in Education” with a few sub-themes. We were happy to see good quality of papers submitted by the Principals.
The II conference was in 2010, again in Nagpur, with the theme “School-the Last Frontier”, with relevant sub-themes. The theme suggested that home was no longer the place it used to be a few decades ago. Since, parents hardly had much time to devote to kids in the nuclear family, and therefore, the main responsibility of subjecting the kids to appropriate ‘sanskaar’ is on the school, and that makes it imperative for the schools to reorient their methods and manners of imparting education.
The III conference was held in 2012 in Nagpur. The theme was “Sing Your Own Song”, with relevant sub-themes. This theme was based on the belief that each child is unique and has its own God-designated purpose and mission of life, and it has every right to sing its own song, that is, follow its own instincts and intuitions for personal growth and ability to make contribution to the larger cause of humanity.
The IV edition of IPEC was held in Dec 2013, on the theme “Back to Black-Board” Let us, however, hasten to add that this was not an anti-technology theme. The theme aimed at that area of education that goes beyond technology — the basics of content. In each age, the technology changed, but the basics of education did not. In each age, the method and manner may have changed, but not the basics. Today, the black-board may have given way to computerized boards in classrooms. Yet, the purpose of the black-board and its use has not changed in principle. Whatever was the purpose of education in schools say 100, 50, 25 years ago has continued to be the same even today — manifestation of the perfection already in the child (Swami Vivekananda).
The V conference of IPEC, held in 2015 was based on an highly thought provoking theme “Harmony with oneself through education.” Stress was laid on evolving the child’s personality in harmony with the surrounding world. It was unanimously realized through various paper presentations that the most vital thing for all beings is to achieve harmony with oneself, for unless the individual has a harmonious self, he or she cannot connect harmoniously with the collective. This theme drove a lot of attention towards our present day education system and ultimately succeeded to quite an extent to come out with a lot of practical changes in the existing curriculum format, with the sole objective to help young individuals achieve their ultimate true goal i.e. harmony with self.
The theme of the VI International Principals’ Educational Conference (IPEC) “Generating Happy minds – thought behind education” was an extension of the theme of V IPEC itself, as it was based on the thought that to attain harmony with one self, one needs to attain a state of “happiness” in its true sense. It was realized that there is actually no way to happiness, on the contrary happiness itself is the way. The theme did not focus on materialistic happiness, however it dug deeper to the state of eternal bliss, the attainment of which could be planned conditioning of mind right from birth and is an ongoing process of one’s life, ultimately leading to upliftment of an individual’s self esteem and motivations that would empower him the correct tools to face even the materialistic life with joy and worthiness.
Next, IPEC came up with its VII conference “Scripting the legends of human excellence through schools” the successful execution of which has further raised its bars with respect to shouldering the responsibility of building up a harmonious through society schools by scripting individuals who are capable enough to unleash their own latent excellences be with the sole constructive objective of benefitting the world for themselves & entire human race.
The conferences till date have been graced by the presence of His Highness Former President of India, Late Bharatratna Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, Param Pujyaniya Sarsanghachalak Shri Mohanji Bhagwat, Ex – Chief Minister of Maharashtra Hon Shri Devendra Fadnavis, Union Minister Hon Nitin Gadkari, Hon External Affairs Ministry GOI Gen V K Singh (Rtd), Hon Governors of various State, Hon Sonam Wangchuk, Hon CBSE Chairman, Hon Vikas Baba Amte.