Shikshayatan Foundation

Welcome To Shikshayatan Foundation Marwari Balika Vidyalaya est. 1920 Shri Shikshayatan School est. 1954 Shri Shikshayatan College est. 1955 Calcutta Business School est. 2008 The end of the nineteenth century was a time of tumult and change in the lives of women. New opportunities in education, employment and social metamorphosis lead to actions that define new roles for women in the decades that follow. Realizing that Only Education, Education and more Education could change the fate of a woman and to popularize the education of young girls to meet the growing needs of social challenges and providing quality education at a reasonable cost to girl students, a group of enlightened Rajasthanis inaugurated a small but progressive school in the year 1920, in a buildings donated by Late Shri J K Birla supported by younger brother Late Shri Ghanshyam Das Birla, the doyen amongst them along with social worker Late Shri Sitaram Seksaria. A girls’ school named Marwari Balika Vidyalaya was thus established in Burrabazar, the business hub of Calcutta. The address was, and still is 29 & 30, Banstolla Lane, Kolkata – 700 007. By its very name the Vidyalaya was meant for girls from the Marwari, or more correctly the Rajasthani Community. In due course, the sapling which was planted in 1920, became a full grown tree with more students knocking at the door than it could perhaps accommodate within the limited space in which it had been functioning. It did not take long for the Vidyalaya to become popular to attract not only girls from the Marwari community but also from the Hindi speaking families of Calcutta in general. It could only absorb about a thousand students. There was no scope for further expansion – a situation which is no different today. Prodded by pressures to provide more opportunities for women’s education, some eminent Social workers like Shri Sitaram Seksaria and Shri Bhagirathi Kanoria contemplated the starting of another school.