The school I graduated from is building a temple inside the school campus. This might not seem like a problem to many of you, but somewhere it is. Isn’t school a place for education and not for worship?
All of us hear that we will learn how to read and write at school. Have any of you ever heard that we learn how to worship in school? No, because worshipping is a social thing that we learn at our homes and not at the place of education. Ultimately, it is up to each individual whether to believe or not to believe.
The construction of a temple within the school forces every student to believe in God. We are supposed to develop our own ideologies in schools and teachers are supposed to offer support for this process. In this scenario, it seems like school is forcing their ideologies on students.
Why Does A School Need A Temple?
Having a school in a temple is commendable, as temple authorities are promoting education. But if the latter is built inside schools, I clearly protest against it. And mind my words, when I say I’m not against building temples, I’m totally against building them inside an educational institute.
When I was a student there, there was a small hanging temple at reception. Now, that small hanging temple is evolving into a legit big temple with several idols of God. It will consume a lot of funds during the process. And for the concerned one, it is not building upon the amount of any donation.
What upsets me the most is the decision made by a school authority to build a temple with the available funds instead of something that will benefit the students.
A great collection of books would have been a better use of the money in the school library, which I found boring as a student. It would also be great to build a proper volleyball court, introduce table tennis or do anything else that would be beneficial to have on the school campus.
What will a student do with a luxurious temple? Doesn’t God rest in all of our hearts? Don’t you consider a child to be a form of God?
Also, building a temple inside an educational institute separates students from each other. It will destroy the sense of belongingness in a student’s mind from a very early age. In addition, religion was not a factor when students took admissions in the school. But when you thought of building a prayer room, you forgot there are students of many different religions on campus.
Hypocrisy has its limits too. The school is not responsible for bringing tension among students due to religious differences. Society is enough for that.
So, dear schools, don’t promote religious differences through educational institutions. Provide free education to students who cannot afford fancy English-medium schools.
My intentions are not to defame my school and, therefore, I am not mentioning its name and address. Public awareness of the situation was my goal.