Sree Narayana Guru's Vision of Education as a Tool for Empowerment and Social Justices.

Sree Narayana Guru considered as a rarest of the rare products of India’s culture; treasure. He was a self-determined social reformer of the highest order, who identified the problems persisting in the society and the solutions to these problems. He emphasised the importance of education and established a number of educational institutions as the means to remove socio- economic oppression from the society.He considered education as the only means to human progress and prosperity and the supreme solution for all social evils. In order to fulfil his ambitious immaculate vision, he established nearly 64 temples and attached to the temples educational institutions also started by the Guru. The evolution process of Sree Narayana’s conviction of education as the most important weapon for mental and social transformation. The Guru gave the people a point formula for development “Freedom through education”. He built temples to enable the untouchables to worship as it was denied to them. But the real purpose of building temples was to make them temples of knowledge. The Guru and his disciples went from door to door to propagate the need for education. The Guru began by establishing a Sanskrit School in the surrounds of the Aruvippuram temple and Mutt. The Guru took initiative to establish a great variety of schools at Sivagiri and other places.He established a handloom training centrein Varkala, a number of people received employment and skill training in this institute and continued to be patronised by the Guru all through his life. For Sree Narayana Guru, Knowledge is God and Learning is worship. It is interesting to note that the last idol he conservated was that of Saradha, the Goddess of Education. After that he declared, ‘we do not need any more temples for god, what we need is temples of learning(Schools)” . all the five principles of education, principle of specific maturation and principle of socialization, professionalism, civilization and spiritualization are met with in Sree Narayana Guru’s educational endeavors.