Dr. Sandeep Khanna, principal, MAEER's MIT Vishwashanti Gurukul School, Loni, Pune participated in the 25th national annual conference of Sahodaya School Complex 2019 that was held on November 1 and 2 at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi. Approximately 1260 principals of CBSE schools in India and abroad attended this two-day national conference. The occasion commemorated CBSE's 90 years of establishment.
Minister of Human Resource Development, Dr. Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' was the chief guest for the conference. The minister of state for Human Resource Development, Sanjay Dhotre, was a distinguished guest. Amit Khare, secretary, department of School Education and Literacy was the guest of honour. Sanjay Kumar, joint secretary, Department of School Education and Literacy was also present on the occasion.
On this occasion, CBSE@90, the coffee table book tracing the journey of 90 years of CBSE, handbook for teachers and handbook for students, a book of essays were released; and CBSE-Adobe Creativity Challenge was launched.
On the first day, four sessions were organised.  In the inaugural session, introduction and setting up of the context was done by Anita Karwal, IAS, chairperson, CBSE. The keynote address on the topic 'Standards of Progress in New Age Education' was given by Prof. Govinda, former vice- chancellor, National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA).
Sister Shivani addressed the gathering on the topic 'Core Competencies' for the 21st century.
The third session was the panel discussion on 'Informing Pedagogy through Experience: Building Human Capacity through Head, Heart and Hand'. The session was moderated by Prof. Punam Batra from CIE, Delhi University.  Rajiv Mehrotra, writer and filmmaker and Dr. Swaroop Rawal, actress and life skills expert were the panellists.
'Sports in Education: The Unseen Space' was the topic for panel discussion during the fourth session. Cdr. Abhilash Tomy, Indian naval officer and first Indian to complete solo circumnavigation of the globe; and Major D.P. Singh, India's first blade runner were the panellists. The second day of the conference began with the address of Bharat Lal, additional secretary, Ministry of Jal Shakti, on the crucial issue of 'Water Conservation in schools'.
The next session on 'Differentiated Learning for Diverse Classroom' had Dr. Achal Bhagat, senior consultant psychiatrist, Shaheen Mistry, founder, Akanksha Foundation, Jo Chopra, director, Latika Foundation as the panellists.
Kapil Pandey, storyteller and musician, Dhiwani Vij, actor and theatre-maker and Manjima Chatterjee, drama Explorer enlightened the participants on storytelling as classroom pedagogy in their panel discussion on ' Conversation on Theatre in Education and Transformations'.
There were also five simultaneous break- away sessions on themes such as hands-on experiential learning, future-ready schools with Artificial Intelligence, Art of Mathematics, Furthering Education and Skills, Empowering Well- being of 21st Century Learners. These sessions were addressed by Anurag Tripathi, secretary, CBSE, Dr. Antriksh Johri, director (IT), Dr. Sanyam Bhardwaj, controller of examinations, CBSE, Manoj Kr. Srivastava, director, Professional Examinations and  Dr. Biswajit  Saha, director, Skill Education and Training.
The guests speakers for this session were Dr. Manish Jain from IIT, Gandhi Nagar, Dr. Nayana Mallapurkar, programme head, TISS, Dr. Maya Saran, Dr. Jitendra Nagpal, mental health consultant, Lisa Neddam, digital skills platform leader, IBM, Switzerland, Shweta Khurana, director, Intel India.
The next session on 'Fit India' was addressed by Sandip Pradhan, director general, Sports Authority of India.
In the valedictory session, Prof. Mahesh Rangarajan, Dept. of History and Environment Studies, Ashoka University spoke on the topic- 'A curriculum for Habitable Earth for all'. Dr. Joseph Emmanuel, director (Academics), presented a brief report on the recommendations and resolutions of the conference.
The closing remarks were given by Anita Karwal. She motivated all schools as well as all CBSE offices to be 'No anger zones'. She also appreciated the efforts of the CBSE academic unit and the Sahodaya Schools Complexes in Delhi for making the conference a success.