Keynote Address

Dev Raj Dahal, FES

"Civic Education: The Role of Youth in Local Self-Governance" NEFAS-FES, October 19, 2003, Kathmandu

Democracy in Action: Democracy requires participatory, rather than disciplinary (or even procedural), learning. Democratic theorists believe in the plurality of views where interests are mediated by free discussion of citizens. Participatory democracy ideally represents the aspirations of its citizens of all generations. A participatory democracy, however, requires the youth develop a spirit of social service and civic skills for public action. The Constitution of the Kingdom of Nepal 1990 and Local Self-Governance Act 1999 underline a policy of promoting the participation of diverse section of people in governance-- to enable them to enjoy the fruits of democracy and determine the type of development they want to pursue.

Local self-governance captures the plurality of local institutions from elected bodies at the village level to schools, health posts, post offices, people's cultural institutions to civil society and NGOs. This pluri-institutionl framework of governance has significant bearing on making and enforcing rules and effecting collective action. Although the community of youth has only status of civil society under law, it can create a legitimate space through the agreeable and equitable arrangements to influence the formal structure of governance. What they require is a process of collective choice. History has demonstrated that when a critical mass of youth asserts its power, a society prepares itself for inter-generational justice. In many remote parts of Nepal where critical mass is fundamentally amiss, even schools children continue serve as proxies for civil society and youths are demanding the responsiveness of the governance.

Local self-governance as Practical Training Center for Youths: Based on the principle of subsidiarity (decision should be carried out at the local level), local bodies are constituted as the foundation of democracy. Engagement of youth in local self-governance, helps them to articulate their perspectives, concerns and needs in the decision-making. Education means not just rote learning of books but also engaging youth to gain civic competence in the analysis of major institutions, social issues and contested power relations. It is also about and enhancing their ability to cope with social problems. In other words, it is a process by which subjects become citizens. Active participation in and a sense of belonging to local self-governance equally helps them to claim a glimmer of recognition of their political and national identity. This is important to transfer the identification of youth from a myriad of sub-systems ( religion, caste, gender, ethnicity, region, etc) to the national political system.

Civic Competence: The roots of civic competence often lie on the edge of political consciousness. Alienation of younger generation of citizens from democratic and development processes and suppression of their voice and visibility stripe them of their citizenship responsibilities. It loses their capacity to understand appropriate solutions to social problems, such as poverty, inequality, discrimination, ecocide, etc and pursue the project of common good. Such a condition hinders their transformation from non-contributing members into an attentive public. Modern education requires youths not to limit themselves only to socially constructed technical and professional role but also assume a "civic" one with the responsibility to bear the burdens of society and set the social change afoot with rationalist vision.

Public Purpose: Civic education for youth has an emancipatory potential, for it liberates them from the irrationality of tradition and enforces their accountability to society. Involvement of youth in local self-governance institutions--as learner, volunteer, voter, consumer and stakeholders helps them to conceptualize the workings of power at personal and institutional levels and instills in them political or public purpose of life. It gives force and substance to their rights and duties. Participation is a useful indicator of one's owns capacity for self-determination and identification with a political culture of active citizenship. This makes them capable of understanding society's larger context inseparable from ideology, power, authority, resource and institutions the aging generation so far is in effective control. It is this generation which continues to instrumentalize them for partisan political action. There is a need for political battle of the young to seize the prospects for themselves and also serve the needy communities.

Deliberative Public: Local self-governance institutions are laboratories for the training of future civic leadership and making them capable of understanding and undertaking public interests. Standing in the threshold of change, youths' exposure to the local self-governance means giving them better understanding of the social context where they live. The more closer the youth to local government, the better the conventional leadership are in a position to understand their needs or to respond them positively. Too much centralization of political power and professionalization of political and development processes are risks to de-centralization because it distances people from the functioning of political system and also de-links the utility of practical knowledge to reaffirm the theoretical foundation of education. Practical engagement of youths in their locality satisfactorily helps them to resolve the problem of praxis and achieve a new forms of self-fulfillment.

Contextual Knowledge: Standard of education ought to reflect the requirement of the local and national diversity. Clearly, a society's power to compete in the knowledge-driven world explicitly depends on the knowledge about the Spirit of the Age and necessary skills and expertise of its youth to compete. Communities, schools and colleges are the best means to prepare younger generation of people to meet the challenges associated with the changes in the nature of jobs. Old may sense disquiet about the danger of politicizing youth. But their continuous depoliticization could place them on the losing side. Politicization process minimizes the costs for cooperation. Learning centers, such as schools, colleges and universities should not become disjointed institutions, they should become an organic part of Nepalese society where youth should learn the political purpose of education and learn about becoming sharers in the shaping of their own fates and dignity in tough circumstances.