How it all began at Psycho Educational Society (PES)

Late Dr. TR Paliwal, an educationist and the founder of Psycho Educational Society (PES) was a Psychologist by profession. He was the principal of a college with Kanpur University in Uttar Pradesh. Dr. Paliwal comes from a village in Mathura named Hailing. This village did not have medical facilities or an adequate level of education during his childhood. Dr. Paliwal had a strong wish to provide for the education and health needs of this underprivileged rural village. Due to his professional and familial commitments, this wish remained unaddressed.

Upon retirement, he took up the task of meeting this goal. With financial and moral support from family, friends, and relatives he established the Psycho Educational Society (PES) in 1982 at his residence in Shalimar Bagh, New Delhi. This organization was a charitable organization and established a health care center and training in tailoring for women and girls.The primary objective for this organization was to uplift the less privileged children in rural areas by providing basic education and creating awareness among illiterate women in the village on family welfare, health education, and personal hygiene. Dr. Paliwal’s wife was a homemaker but also wished to make a difference. She proceeded to establish Mahila Vikas Kendra (MVK) at Faridabad with her husband’s assistance.  This center provided training in tailoring and computers. This assisted women and children with the development of job skills and therefore the ability to contribute to their family income.

Dr. Paliwal died in 1997. His son Mr. K. M. Palwal followed in his father’s footsteps and began to work full time with the Psycho Educational Society. Mr. Paliwal was a graduate of FMS with an MBA. He brought his managerial and organizational leadership skills to the task of running the society. He shared, “My father is my inspiration. Throughout my career, I learnt, taught sometimes, and earned. I realized that money is a necessity. I wanted to work to remain alert and well-sounded. To complete my parents’ mission – serving the women and girls of our village – I wanted to work full time with society and make it a formal school. In 1995, my father applied to the Japan Government for a grant to establish a building for formal school at Barauli. This was the major breakthrough and our first major fund to establish a school. In 1997, we received the grant and in 2000 we established a formal school.”

Mr. K.M. Paliwal’s research found a gap between education in urban and rural settings. He found that people in Barauli were not aware of the importance of education and health, or they found education too expensive since they belonged to the low income labor class. He started organizing awareness camps and adult education to bring awareness to these villagers. After three years of ground work and research, in 2000, he established Bhagavathi Devi Paliwal Vidyalaya, at Barauli – a formal school from Nursery to Grade 8 which follows the Uttar Pradesh State Government’s curriculum. “We wanted to establish Grade 9 & 10 too, but the government was not supportive and we had to go through a huge task which still is not complete. The major obstacles were getting good teachers and talking to the community (since it’s a backward community), to convince them to send their girls to school” adds Mr. Paliwal.The current enrollment stands at 350 students belonging to less privileged sections of five villages surrounding Barauli.

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