“There is a lot of teaching and training happening in India but very little learning or understanding.”
                                                                           - Yashpal Committee report

It is no secret that the present education system is struggling, and while there have been massive efforts to revamp it through quality education, teacher training and other such means, these have had little positive effect. The present education system has not been able to adapt to the fast-changing social, economic, cultural and political transformation that has been taking place over the past decade. Moreover, growing threats to our ecology, disruption of local communities and the rise of global consumerism have made it necessary to question many of the basic assumptions that have shaped the modern world. Today, we are left with a worldview of society as a great machine whose purpose is to extract and convert natural and human resources into commodities for concentrated profits.

As a result, today’s youth find themselves at a crossroads, not sure of their own ideals and values, or of their identities. Alien (and alienating) institutions like schools and colleges, the mass media and government promise a successful life, but in reality drain their labour and energy and leave them cynical and dependent. The education system has not prepared them to understand their needs, strengths or dreams. Rather, it has urged them to become standardized products, designed to fit into techno-industrial moulds.

With such complex situations facing our world today we need a new kind of youth leadership and a radical way of learning. Swaraj University is an attempt to provide this to today's youth.