Revealed: The plans for Australia’s first Hindu school

Despite being one of Australia’s fastest-growing religious groups, the Hindu community has been the only major faith without its own school.

Until now.

The federal government has promised the Hindu community $8.5 million in grant funding to launch a new school in western Sydney.

Surinder Jain and Sai Paravastu are supporting the development of Australia’s first Hindu school. Credit: Steven Siewert

The Sanatan School is aiming to welcome its first class of students in 2027, with plans to eventually educate more than 1000 students, from kindergarten to year 12.

Australia’s Hindu population has skyrocketed in the past decade, growing by 55.3 per cent between the 2016 and 2021 census.

Land for the school’s campus has been purchased at Oakville, in Sydney’s north-west, through community fundraising. The Hindu Education and Cultural Centre (HEACC) will administer the school.

HEACC director Pranav Aggarwal said the school will plug a “significant gap” in Australia’s educational landscape.

“Everyone in our community experienced this gap,” he said. “A Hindu school has been missing from the Australia’s multicultural tapestry for too long, and the amount of enthusiasm and encouragement we have heard is testament to that.”

He said families in the Hindu community had been waiting for a school that would reinforce their cultural identity and educate young Hindus to be “resilient, gritty, [and] model citizens” who “keep their faith as a moral compass in life”.

The lack of a dedicated Hindu school has meant the growing community has had to depend on religious classes in public schools, or Saturday schools in community or temple spaces.

Surinder Jain, the vice president of the Hindu Council of Australia, said parents have had to “improvise” in the absence of a Hindu school.

“I struggled, and most other parents struggled, to work out how to teach our Hindu values to our children,” he said. “We’ve all had to improvise at home. And while that works, a formal system was always needed, and many parents have been wishing for a school for a while.”

Like other faith-based schools, Sanatan will integrate a religious education into the standard NSW curriculum, including teaching the basics of the Hindu faith, as well as “reaffirmation in culture, language and sacred texts”, according to Aggarwal.

Students will learn about Hindu gods, study Sanskrit, and practice yoga. They will also be offered traditional foods as part of the school’s experience.

According to HEACC, 20 per cent of the curriculum would be based around Hindu teachings and culture, a similar structure to Muslim or Catholic schools.

“It’s going to strengthen and become an integral part of the multicultural fabric of Australia,” Aggarwal said. “It will provide a choice to our community, a choice other religious groups already have.”

The school will begin with kindergarten to year 2 students in 2027, with new kindergarten enrolments in the following years to grow the school up to year 12.

School fees are still up in the air, but Jain said they were hoping to keep them between $10,000 and $15,000 a year.

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