"These schools fundamentally exist to help both the students and the teacher to flower in goodness"
                                                                            - J.Krishnamurti

                                                                         

The Rural Centre has set up a school named after Shri Achyuth Patwardhan to try out, understand (in its entirety) and realize (in spirit) Krishnamurti's vision of holistic education, which he recalls "the education of the whole process of life". It envisages creating an environment of self-learning, growing out of a culture of freedom, open enquiry, interaction, initiative and individual human dignity.   << More

The Rural Centre is situated bordering Sarai Mohan and Kotwan villages.
These villages are not developed despite being on the periphery of the ancient holy city - Varanasi. The children from Sarai Mohana, Kotwan, Kapildhara and Rajapur villages walk down to the school. Rajapur village is situated about 3.5 km from the Centre. Most of the children belong to fishermen and weavers communities. These communities have been driven to appalling poverty due to the dwindling stock of fish in holy river -Ganga (Ganges) and adverse consequences of economic policies. The children from these communities have meager resources to afford a good education. APS is making concerted efforts to fill this gap.
 
About 240 and odd students are studying right from the Kindergarten to Tenth Standard. It is a co-education school. Tenth standard was introduced from the academic year 2006-07. The students take up the examinations through National Institute of Open Schooling, New Delhi. In addition to the regular academic subjects word processing and disaster management have been introduced as new subjects to the curriculum of the school. The Rotary Club of Varanasi South has gifted two computers, solely for the use of students and teachers.

The school provides snacks to the students. This midday snack is served as an encouragement to these disadvantaged children to pursue education. The school runs mostly on donations from philanthropists and to some degree on the resources raised internally. The school needs quite a lot of infrastructural facilities, education materials, equipments, etc. With a view to provide a different perspective to learning and life, resources persons are invited periodically to conduct workshops on education, arts and crafts, skills development etc.